CHARMER is an England-wide research project that aims to help address overprescribing in the NHS
CHARMER is a six-year (2020-2026) England-wide research project to develop and test an approach to increasing discussions with patients about stopping medicines that are no longer useful and could be harmful. CHARMER has been tested on wards that specialise in the care of older people.
This is important since as we get older, our bodies are less able to handle some medicines. Medicines that were once effective and safe may no longer work as well but could still cause side effects. Our research shows that most older people want their medicines reviewed while in hospital.
We have researched the reasons why a medicine review like this doesn’t always happen and designed an approach to support hospital doctors and pharmacists to increase discussions with older patients about stopping medicines that are no longer useful and could be harmful.
We have trialled the CHARMER approach in a number of hospitals to see how well it works.
The Guide to Disseminating Research (GuiDiR) is now published and available to download here.
GuiDiR provides evidence-based instructions on how to plan and execute dissemination activities across the lifetime of a research project. It is intended for researchers, practitioners and funders to facilitate evidence reaching the right people at the right time, and in turn influencing policy/practice.
We are using GuiDiR to disseminate CHARMER’s findings. If you’re interested in using GuiDiR, download it here.
Read more about the development of GuiDiR in our manuscript here.
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Funding Acknowledgement
This project is funded by the NIHR PGfAR. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.