NHS England: Valproate decision support tools comms toolkit (May 2023)

Summary

To support patients to understand the risks of taking sodium valproate during pregnancy, NHS England has launched two new shared decision-making tools. This is part of an NHS-wide effort to reduce the use of valproate in people who can get pregnant, and to help those that do continue with valproate to prevent pregnancies.

Content

If sodium valproate is taken during pregnancy there is a significant risk of harm to the baby as well as later developmental and learning disabilities.

There are two versions of the tool, one for patients with epilepsy and the other for patients with bipolar disorder. Patients can use the tools with their clinician to help them understand the potential risks and benefits of valproate and help them to decide whether to start or keep taking it.

Any patients who wish to no longer take valproate should have their medication carefully managed as a sudden stop in the use of sodium valproate can cause severe harm.

The tools have been developed with a range of expert clinicians, and patient representatives.

To support the introduction of these tools to both patients and clinicians, NHS England has produced the attached comms toolkit containing key messages, template articles and suggested social media posts and graphics.

Attachments