23,500 LIVES CUT SHORT BY CHEMICAL COSH - GOVERNMENT FAIL TO ACT ON WARNINGS - BURSTOW

1.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 1st Apr 2008

Unlicensed drugs are being prescribed to 100,000 elderly people in care homes to keep them quiet and manageable. Despite growing evidence that antipsychotic drugs cut lives short, increase the risk of stroke and have harmful side-effects the Government has failed to act.

A new report by Paul Burstow MP, a long time campaigner for the rights of older people, calls for Police action and a ban on routine prescribing to cut the death toll. The report, Keep taking the medicine 4, found:

• 100,000 older people in care homes are routinely prescribed antipsychotic drugs;

• 23,500 people in care homes die needlessly because of inappropriate prescribing of antipsychotic drugs;

• The number reported fatal adverse drug reactions to antipsychotic drugs rose by 36.8 per cent in the last four years;

• Two in five care homes routinely fail to meet minimum standards for the administration of medicines;

• Inappropriate prescribing and administration of antipsychotic medication could lead to criminal prosecution.

Commenting on his report, Paul Burstow MP, said: "Using drugs to chemically restrain vulnerable older people with dementia is no different to strapping them to a chair. It is an abuse of their human rights and dignity.

"Inappropriate or abusive prescribing is not just sedating older people it is killing them. The law makes it clear treatment without consent is assault. It is time the Police and Courts took elder abuse seriously.

"Ministers are guilty of being dangerously complacent. Despite repeated warnings they have failed to put in place the essential safeguards. There should a ban on prescribing antipsychotic drugs in all but the most severe cases of dementia.

"There are human alternatives, they demand more training and support but they work. It is time that care homes and GPs were required to cut back on the drugs and step up the care."

ENDS

Notes to editor

Paul Burstow published his first report Keep taking the medicine? in November 2001. He has campaigned in and out of parliament for changes in the law, higher standards and better enforcement to protect older people from inappropriate medication.

In his latest report, Keep taking the medicine? 4 (available in the Research and Reports section of this website) he makes the following recommendations:

1. The Police should investigate complaints about the inappropriate use of medication in care homes to see if there is evidence of ill treatment or wilful neglect under the Mental Capacity Act.

2. The Department of Health should ban the use of antipsychotic drugs in the treatment of people with mild cases of dementia, and urgently review the evidence for their safety and efficacy in severe cases.

3. The General Medical Council should investigate the routine off-licence prescribing of antipsychotic medication as a breach of their rules.

4. The Department of Health should include person centred care training and support for staff working with people with dementia in its National Strategy.

5. It should be made law that monthly medicine reviews are undertaken where more than four drugs are being prescribed and quarterly for those in less.

In a yet to be fully published study has found that long term treatment with antipsychotic medication in people with dementia significantly increases the rate of mortality . In other words dementia patients are dying earlier because of the antipsychotic medication they are being prescribed.

The research involved a randomised blinded placebo-controlled parallel two-group trial for 12 months, including a follow-up for 24-54 months, in order to asses how the use of antipsychotic drugs influences the mortality rate of a patient with Alzheimer's disease.

The results showed that there were clear differences in the survival rates at 24 months ([placebo] 78% v [treatment] 55%), 36 months (62% v 35%) and 42 months (60% v 28%). Given that there are around 100,000 people with dementia living in care homes in the UK at any one time over 23,500 could be dying prematurely as a result of being prescribed antipsychotic drugs .