There is a lack of policy guidance on how community pharmacists should involve the family carers of older people, according to new research by Pharmacy Research UK (PRUK).

The aim of the research was to improve the understanding of the community pharmacists’ current role when supporting family members who assist older people with their medicines.

It was found that often family carers don’t identify themselves as carers and pharmacists often don’t know who helps the patient with their medicines. In addition, there are no identification protocols, nor a systematic method for recording carers, and while the pharmacist often sees the carer and not the patient, consent was not routinely being obtained from patients to share medicine information with carers. Problems are also often compounded by carers using multiple pharmacies or patients having multiple carers.

PRUK has made several recommendations with the aim of improving the relationship between pharmacies, carers and elderly patients:

1. A definition of carer is required that is helpful for pharmacy staff such as "a person who assists someone else with their medicines in any way". This definition may also encourage people to seek help and advice even if they do not identify themselves as a carer
2. Pharmacies could collaborate, and possibly share records, with GP practices, where systems and approaches to identify carers are being developed
3. Raising awareness of how pharmacies could help those who help others with medicines by using local and national campaigns, voluntary organisations, libraries, local council websites and social media. Pharmacists could be more proactive in offering support to people who help others with medicines
4. Pharmacists would benefit from more detailed guidance as part of the code of ethics as to how they can support people who help others with medicines. Bespoke training programmes for pharmacists could be developed
5. Further research is needed to develop feasible methods and a suitable tool for pharmacists to obtain consent to share information when the patient is not present.