Delegates at an international conference heard that more needed to be done to raise the profile of the Yellow Card scheme, which allows patients to directly report serious side effects of prescribed medicines that have not previously been included in pharmaceutical product literature.
It followed recent research led by academics at The University of Nottingham, University of Aberdeen, the Drug Safety Research Unit (DSRU) and Liverpool John Moores University which showed that patient reporting of suspected adverse drugs reactions, or ADRs, through the Yellow Card scheme is richer in detail and better at describing the impact on their daily lives than information supplied by health care professionals.
Tony Avery, Professor of Primary Health Care in the University's School of Community Health Sciences, who led the research and spoke at the conference, said: "Not only do patients' voices matter, the experiences of everyday people taking prescribed medicines can also increase the understanding of adverse effects.