Medication Safety Standard

Intellectual disability and the Medication Safety Standard

The Medication Safety Standard is about the safe prescribing, dispensing, administration and monitoring of medicines. Medication safety includes continuity of management, ensuring regular medication reviews, accurate recording of current prescriptions and dispensing, and transfer of information at key transition points.22,53

The provision of person-centred care, as described in the Partnering with Consumers Standard, is central to medication safety. 

People with intellectual disability are often at a higher risk of adverse effects from medications and the use of psychotropic medications for behaviour.[63],[64],[65] In addition to issues of safe prescribing, monitoring and review of medications, people with intellectual disability may not have access to information about their medicine, including: 

  • The reason for taking the medicine 
  • The name of the medicine, including the generic substitution
  • How and when to take the medicine
  • Potential side effects.

To promote the person’s understanding of their medicines, provide information in the most appropriate way for the person, which may include pictures or diagrams, Easy Read, audio, video or braille. The required level of resources should be available for clinicians to use when engaging with a person with intellectual disability. See the sections below for resources to assist health service organisations and clinicians in this area.

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