4 March 2005

Did you know that in any fortnight, around seventy per cent of Australians will have taken at least one medicine? Medicines can contribute to good health outcomes; however, about 140,000 people are admitted to hospital every year as a result of problems with their medicines.

To help avoid medicines mix-ups it is important to understand your medicines and the Get to Know Your Medicines Kit can help. Produced by National Prescribing Service Ltd (NPS), the kit will help you to run interactive activities and events about medicines in your community.

“I have been running sessions around Tamworth with the help of NPS since October,” said Jim Finucane of the Senior Citizens Centre Committee of Tamworth. “I have had a chance to see the kit and am pleased that it will help other people like me work with their communities so we can all understand our medicines better. The kit covers everything you could need to hold a session and get people to attend.”

If you are interested in learning about your medicines, and helping others in your community to understand theirs, it is possible for you to run local activities using the Get to Know Your Medicines Kit.

The kit includes:

• a guide to help you organise and plan an activity
• a guide on promoting the activity to get people to attend
• a 24 slide presentation for you to use in your activity a guide to help you collect feedback from people attending your activities, including forms for participants to complete.

The kit can be viewed online, or can be ordered in a CD format at www.nps.org.au. If you don’t have a computer, you can get a hard-copy of the resources from NPS by phoning (02) 82178700.

ENDS

National Prescribing Service Ltd (NPS) provides independent, evidence-based information and services to health professionals and the community on Quality Use of Medicines (QUM). To achieve this we work in partnership with GPs, pharmacists, specialists, other health professionals, Government, pharmaceutical industry, consumer organisations and the community.