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“Older people require special care and consideration from prescribers.”
NICE
“Older adults, people living with frailty and residents in care homes are among those at highest risk from problematic polypharmacy.”
UK Clinical Pharmacy Association, Polypharmacy Guidance, December 2025
“It is important that we recognise why this area of non-medical prescribing is different to other areas of clinical practice… There are specific challenges around medication in older people which the prescriber must be cognisant of. We all can appreciate when we have an older person in front of us, they never present themselves as a textbook, perfect case… As people get older, there are changes in the way the body handles medication… Many factors are different in older people… Whilst we must always prescribe to improve the quality of life of all patients, specifically in older people, we cannot increase the risks of worsening or inducing frailty syndromes in older people.”
Nigel Dodds, Consultant Nurse for Older People, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
“Rates of medication error are higher in older adults, in care home settings, primary and secondary care and during transfer of care, contributing to high rates of hospital admission among people over 75, especially those with frailty… patient safety is paramount when addressing older adults prescribing.”
Getting it Right First Time – Geriatric Medicine
“In England, over 1 billion items are prescribed every year in primary care and over 1 million people in this country take 10 or more medicines for their long-term conditions. Almost half of these patients are aged 75 and over.”
NHS Health Innovation Network, March 2025
This important national conference provides an essential, practice-focused update for nurses and non-medical prescribers working with older people across acute, primary, community and care home settings.
Prescribing for older adults is increasingly complex. Older people are more likely to be living with frailty, multimorbidity, cognitive impairment, falls risk, long-term pain, delirium risk and multiple medicines. NICE guidance on multimorbidity highlights the importance of reducing treatment burden and supporting shared decisions based on what matters most to the person, including their treatment goals, priorities and quality of life.
The day will examine how the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Competency Framework for All Prescribers, adopted by the NMC, supports safe, person-centred prescribing practice. The NMC expects nurse and midwife prescribers to practise in line with this framework, which underpins safe and effective prescribing practice for professionals on the NMC register. Through national updates and extended interactive case-based sessions, delegates will consider how to develop, demonstrate and maintain prescribing competence in post-qualification practice, including recognising the limits of scope of practice and knowing when to seek senior, specialist or multidisciplinary advice.
The conference will include practical case studies on:
Managing pain in the older person
Improving medicines optimisation
Prescribing in falls prevention
Prescribing for frail older adults and those living with multimorbidity
Prescribing to prevent and manage delirium
The evolving role of the nurse prescriber in care homes and community services
The conference will explore how nurses and non-medical prescribers can prescribe safely, effectively and confidently for older people, while recognising the particular risks of adverse drug reactions, problematic polypharmacy, prescribing cascades, medicines-related harm and errors at transfer of care. GIRFT has highlighted that older patients and those living with frailty should receive support with their medicines during and after transfer of care to avoid errors and adverse reactions.
“Everyone has a responsibility to address problematic polypharmacy.”
Royal Pharmaceutical Society, 2024
This conference will enable you to:
Network with colleagues who are working to improving nurse prescribing for older adults
Learn from outstanding practice in ensuring patient safety in older adult prescribing
Reflect on pain management in the older adult and some of its many facets through case presentation
Improve medicines optimisation
Understanding how to reduce inappropriate or problematic polypharmacy
Learn how to use the National Prescribing Competency Framework (as required by the NMC)
Understand how to effectively develop, demonstrate and maintain continued competence in Prescribing for Older Adults
Explore best practice in frailty, Polypharmacy & Prescribing
Reflect on lessons from experts in nurse prescribing for specific case study areas with in depth interactive sessions focusing on pain in the older person, medication management for falls prevention, prescribing to avoid delirium and the role of the NMP in care homes
Working with patients with co-morbidity
Develop your role and confidence as a non medical prescriber
Self assess, reflect and expand your skills in prescribing practice whilst understanding your limits of practice
Supports CPD professional development and acts as revalidation evidence. This course provides 5 Hrs training for CPD subject to peer group approval for revalidation purposes
