The MUR is undertaken by a pharmacist to help you as the patient to manage your medicine more effectively.
The MUR involves Burns Pharmacist to review your use of medication, ensuring that you understand how it should be used and why it has been prescribed. In doing so Burns Pharmacist can also identify any problems and then where necessary provide feedback to the prescriber.
An MUR is a way to:
- improve patients’ understanding of their medicines;
- highlight problematic side effects and propose solutions where appropriate;
- improve adherence; and
- reduce medicines wastage, usually by encouraging the patient only to order the medicines they require.
An MUR is not:
- a full clinical review;
- an agreement about changes to medicines;
- a discussion about the medical condition beyond that which is needed to achieve the above objectives; or
- a discussion on the effectiveness of treatment based on test results.
What does it involve?
Burns Pharmacist will ask the patient to bring their medication (including purchased medicines) with them to the review and a set of questions will be used to maximise the amount of information from the patient’s perspective as is possible.
Burns Chemist takes into consideration:
- what the patient thinks each medicine is for and when and how they take it;
- how compliant they are with the prescriber’s instructions;
- how and when they take medication labelled ‘as required’ or ‘as directed’;
- advice on tolerability and perceived side effects;
- dealing with practical problems in ordering, obtaining, taking and using medicines;
- identification of unwanted medicines, e.g. where the patient is no longer taking the medicine;
- identification of a potential change of dosage form to facilitate effective use with due regard to formularies and cost implications (the final decision lies with the patient’s GP); and
- proposals for dose or strength optimisation, provided it does not impact on the patient’s clinical management.
