Let’s talk differently about medicines

Participants will: • Work with a new public engagement resource designed to spark conversations about addressing problematic polypharmacy; • Reflect on the value of narrative for health improvement; • In small groups: o Discuss issues raised by one polypharmacy story o Share ideas on how to increase the reach/impact of the resource • Have opportunity to collaborate in supporting patients/professionals/public talk differently about medicines.

1) 5-minute description of how we created the resources 2) Divide participants into small groups of 3-5 and allocate one story per group. We will ask people to: a. Read the story independently (5min)  b. Spend 30 minutes interacting around 3 discussion points, tailored to the stories (10m each) c. (15 minutes) Discuss and collate ideas for: i. How to use these stories in practices/communities; ii. Maximizing reach of the materials; iii. Evaluating their implementation iv. Developing the resource further  We will ask small groups to appoint a note-taker to list ideas. After the workshop we will bring ideas together and share them with participants who would like to receive them.  We will ask participants to share their email addresses and advise us whether and how they might like to be involved in our ongoing efforts to support patients and professionals in talking differently with each other about medicines.

‘Let’s talk differently about medicines’ is a public engagement resource designed for patients/carers/clinicians. It is a collection of seven illustrated fictional story booklets and accompanying discussion prompts (See also www.medicinestalk.co.uk). Each story (800 – 1600 words) features one key character (a patient) and presents polypharmacy through the lens of patient experiences. Our aim is to raise awareness of polypharmacy and invite patients into new conversations about polypharmacy with friends, family and clinicians involved in their care (e.g. GPs, pharmacists). Our research has shown that sometimes the issues that polypharmacy raises are difficult for professionals and patients to talk about in a meaningful way.   The characters, names and narratives are fictional but are inspired by the participants and findings of our ethnographic research on polypharmacy (2017-2021) conducted in patients’ homes/general practice/community pharmacy. We also used a design-led method, ‘Storytelling Group’ technique, with a patient participation group. We tested and refined a prototype through user-testing with older adults.  

Intended audience:

• Healthcare professionals involved in prescribing, dispensing or reviewing medicines

• Patients/carers • Professionals/patients interested public engagement

• Researchers interested in: o Narrative methodologies o Ethnographic research o Study of lived experience o Multimorbidity/polypharmacy o Participatory approached to research e.g. co-design