NICE chair: Doctors need better pharmacology training

The chairman of NICE has warned that doctors are not receiving enough pharmacology training on the effects of drugs.

Following claims that one in 14 people admitted to hospital are suffering from an adverse reaction to a prescribed drug, Professor Sir Michael Rawlins has said the General Medical Council (GMC) is to blame for changing medical education so doctors are provided with insufficient training on the effects of drugs.

He told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme that while the range and effectiveness of drugs had increased “enormously” during the last 25 years, doctors had to be “extremely careful” over interactions between drugs.

Sir Michael stated: “A number of us have been complaining strongly over the years and I think really the General Medical Council, to be honest, and they won’t like me for saying this, have let us down.”

“Doctors generally the moment they graduate can prescribe anything in the pharmacopoeia, but it is extraordinary – we’ve got to a situation where we have less time training medical students than nurses on how to prescribe drugs,” he added.

The professor welcomed the chief medical officer’s announcement that the government should consider removing the GMC’s role in defining the undergraduate medical curriculum. He said that the more modern “problem-based” training of doctors was fine in theory, but that some general principles may not be taught in practice.

He concluded by saying that the range and diversity of drugs now available had coincided with a decline in the teaching of their effects.

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