Medicines Management Policy & Procedure

What should a home care medication policy cover?

A medication policy sets out how your care workers help people take and look after their medicines safely at home. By law, a registered service must manage medicines properly and safely, and NICE says any provider that gives medicines support should have a written policy. This one follows NICE guideline NG67, which covers adults who get social care in the community.

The policy is written for home care in England.

What the policy includes

• Definitions of terms such as covert administration, which means giving a medicine in a disguised form without the person knowing

• Duties for the Registered Manager, care staff and the provider

• How to assess and agree medicines support before it starts, then tell the GP practice and pharmacy

• Five types of support, from reminding through to specialist tasks such as giving a medicine through a PEG tube

• Steps for each visit, built on the 6 rights: right person, medicine, route, dose and time, and the person's right to decline

• What to do when someone declines a dose, when a prescriber gives a change verbally, and when an error happens

• Ordering, storing, transporting and disposing of medicines

• Training, with a competency check before anyone gives medicines and a yearly review

How care workers use it on a visit

Care workers give only the support written in the person's care plan. Before a dose they ask whether the person has already taken it and check the MAR chart, then record the support for each medicine at the time they give it. If the directions are unclear, they leave the medicine and call the office.

A refusal goes on the MAR using the agreed code, and the office hears about it before the worker leaves. Covert medicines are never given without clear authorisation in the care plan. That decision follows the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and needs a capacity assessment, a best interests meeting and a pharmacist's advice on how to give the medicine.

Before you use this medication policy

Tailor it to the support you give and remove anything you do not do. Add your local NHS and commissioner arrangements, your record system, your procedure for controlled drugs, needles and syringes, and how often you audit MAR charts.

Two forms carry the policy into the visit. The Medication Administration Record (MAR Chart) is where care workers record each dose, and the Medication Refusal Record captures what happened when someone says no. Misuse or deliberate withholding of medicines may be abuse, so keep your Safeguarding Policy & Procedure to hand.