A proactive pharmacist home visit service for housebound patients found that 30% had not received a medication review for more than five years, while 64% had not received a medicines review for more than two years.
This was despite 66% of the patients involved living with five or more long-term conditions and 70% being at risk of medication-related harm.
In some cases, “patients had gone more than 20 years or had never had a documented medication review”, the lead pharmacist for the project told delegates at the Royal College of Pharmacy’s Delivering a Healthier Wales conference, held in Cardiff on 25 September 2026.
However, a pharmacist home-visiting project has enabled more than half of its patients to reduce their medication, improving rates of falls and hospital visits.
Tracey Witherall, lead pharmacist for Aneurin Bevan Health Board’s Primary and Community Care Academy, shared an update on the Home Visit Project. This has run since summer 2024 and supports 349 housebound patients aged between 23 years and 103 years, with an average age of 80 years.
The project was developed as part of efforts to improve access to care for the area’s most vulnerable patients, who are often frail, with high levels of polypharmacy and multimorbidity, Witherall said.
“Visiting patients’ houses allows me to identify medication adherence issues and safeguarding issues, alongside other challenges such as loneliness, bereavement, poor mental health, housing problems, and unmet care needs.
“All of these factors impact how patients manage and take their medication, and increases the risk of falls, worsens their long-term conditions and can result in avoidable hospital admissions.”
Source: The Pharmaceutical Journal. 5 October 2026
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