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Independent Prescriber: The UKPDS Study

Decent Essays

Increasing demands on the healthcare system has led to the development of the role of the Non-Medical Independent Prescriber, with the four-fold aim to improve patient care without compromising patient safety, make it easier for patients to access medicines, make better use of the skills of healthcare professionals and contribute to a greater multi-disciplinary team structures across the NHS (D of H, 2006). Independent prescribers have been defined as “practitioners responsible and accountable for the assessment of patients with previously undiagnosed or diagnosed conditions and for decisions about the clinical management required, including prescribing.” (BNF 2015) In the UK, by 2011, approximately 21,000 nurses, pharmacists and other allied …show more content…

The study showed that the benefits of glucose reduction did not accrue for several years, and despite achieving statistical significance, the absolute risk reduction from intensive glycaemic control was small, with a reduction of 5 events over 10 years, and a small differential HbA1c between the conventional and intensive groups. Furthermore, due to the progressive nature of the disease, increasing combinations of oral and insulin drug therapy were introduced over to time to maintain the tight glycaemic control, therefore providing greater variability and a limited scope of comparison for statistical data on the efficacy of individual agents used amongst the patient cohorts.(King, Peacock, and Donnelly, 1999). This has raised further questions for clinicians in assessing how worthwhile are the benefits achieved with tighter glycaemic control, and how can targets be achieved in routine practice? It is not always clinically acceptable to maintain intensive glycaemic control, for example with the frail and elderly, or those with existing severe co-morbidities or complications. The Diabetes Control and Complications Trial follow up study reported that patients who achieved an average HbA1c value of 53mmol/mol had better outcomes after 20 years of follow-up than the control group (who had an average HbA1c of 75 mmol/mol), irrespective of …show more content…

(NICE 2015). A Cochrane review article assessed 25 studies, encompassing almost 12,864 patients of published randomized controlled trials of various lengths from 12 to 52 weeks. The review highlighted that individual study sizes and lengths of study were different, renal and hepatic function patient inclusion criteria between studies was different, and therefore it was not possible to directly compare the efficacy of individual agents within this drug class. (Richter et al., 2008) It must also be noted that some of these trials were funded by pharmaceutical companies, and therefore may be prone to bias. Inzucchi SE et Al, 2015 compiled an independent comparative report using twelve peer reviewed published studies of randomized double blind trials, that indicates as an add-on to metformin therapy, the individual drugs within the class, showed between 0.5% to 0.83% reduction in HbA1c versus placebo, with Saxagliptin Linagliptin and Sitagliptin showing the greatest equal efficacy (Inzucchi SE et Al, 2015). However, episodes of hypoglycaemia were reported in significantly lower numbers of patients on Sitagliptin (1.3%) compared to Saxagliptin (5.2%), hence Sitagliptin was the prescribing choice for patient XY. It is important to bear in mind that the cost of both drugs is similar (BNF 2015), and with imminent loss of patent with

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