PPI reflection on experience in attending an academic conference
"Prescribing and deprescribing is something we do to patients so their viewpoint does matter."
Rajneesh Kaur and Eloise Radcliffe
Picture: Kinda Ibrahim, Eloise Radliffe, Nina Fudge, Jalpa and Rajneesh Kaur
In September 2024 I attended an International Conference on Deprescribing in France (ICOD2). I'd been looking forward to this event since first coming to know of it about a year before. When registering for the conference it stated that they welcomed all 'researchers, clinicians and teachers in the deprescribing field'. This prompted me to email the organisers to ask if I could attend as a non-healthcare professional. They were very welcoming and reassured me that anyone can attend.
I was excited not only to see what was happening at the cutting edge of deprescribing but also because I was going to meet the Southampton team in person for the first time at the conference. We had communicated over Teams before but the conference was a great way to meet each other in person. We recognised each other straight away and were in close company over the two days at the conference.
The actual content of the conference reconsolidated a lot of what I had learnt about deprescribing so far. It was great to see leading figures deliver live and to be able to ask questions and have conversations with them.
When mingling in the workshops and over lunch, people were interested to gain our perspective — I was attending with a good friend of mine who is also a non-healthcare professional like me, but as she is a solicitor, the healthcare professionals at the conference seemed very interested in the legal angle of deprescribing when speaking to my friend. This legal area does need exploring I feel.
The viewpoint of patients and carers seemed like something the healthcare professionals valued, yet I felt it was under-represented in the conference. Prescribing and deprescribing is something we do to patients so their viewpoint does matter.
I enjoyed listening to the presentation from David Gardner in particular, who shared a patient's experience, with the patient (George) interacting live on the call. This really brought to life how deprescribing can make a difference. Bringing the patient's perspective forward can bring inspiration and motivation to healthcare professionals to be more comfortable with stepping into the unknown and trying something new.
I also appreciated that the conference organisers were trying to be open and ethical about their funding, especially pleased that they were not accepting funding from pharmaceutical companies. This made it seem OK that we didn't have any extravagant lunch arrangements, I'd rather that and keep the soul of the conference alive. Also, my friend and I were humbled and surprised to see that every other person at the conference was a pharmacist. It was almost as if after working with medication so closely, these pharmacists realise the harm as well as the good that medicines can do and therefore have come to the conference to understand and acknowledge the importance and challenges of deprescribing.
Although deprescribing should be a part of prescribing, it is practised far less than prescribing. In fact, I would say that the benefits of deprescribing are just now being realised and are not mainstream at all. As a result, it seemed very challenging when I first set out looking for pathways to come off medication safely and only then eventually even came across the term deprescribing.
The conference was international and it opened doors to meet people from other countries who were on the same page. I especially remember my encounter with a researcher from Denmark who said something very profound, she explained that it's not the patients that need educating, if we make a safe space where people can be deprescribed from medication — they will come. This researcher had struggles with a loved one who is on medication.
This conference was a great platform to network and strengthen beliefs in deprescribing. It was only the second international conference ever held on this topic and I am very much looking forward to ICOD3
Eloise: One of the highlights of attending the International Conference on Deprescribing in Nantes, France, was meeting Rajneesh in-person, our highly valued and very engaged Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) team member. She has been a PPI group member of the ARC Wessex-funded MODIFY study (Medication review and deprescribing intervention for older people living with frailty in primary care) and is now chairing the PPI group for a new ARC Wessex-funded study DOMINO-HF (Deprescribing and medicines optimisation in older people with heart failure). I had previously only met her online and the conference was a great opportunity to talk in-person about the presentations and workshops by international leaders in the field of deprescribing and discuss Rajneesh’s ideas for future projects. The conference was a very welcoming and supportive environment and I would definitely agree with Rajneesh that more patients and caregivers should be represented at the conference, and will hopefully be encouraged to attend and participate in the next one, ICOD3 in 2 years time!