Should people who are unwell, and their family members, be involved in the discussion about what drugs to prescribe?

Professor David Taylor: Current recommendations from NICE for most, if not all mental disorders is that the patient should be involved in the decision-making process about the choice of medication.

If the patient is unable, for some reason, to contribute to that decision-making process, then a friend or relative can substitute or stand in for them. So, the decision about what medication is taken should be taken by the prescriber, and the patient, or their representative, together.

There should be no instances of old-style prescribing, if you like, where a prescription is written, handed to the patient, and the patient is sent away, being told to just take it. It’s understood now that that isn’t acceptable and that things work better for everybody if the patients, or their representatives, are involved in the decision-making process. That’s both at the beginning and while taking the medication, because there will be many occasions where a patient will contribute to the choice of a particular medication, take it for a few weeks and find it unacceptable to them. They then need to have the facility to go back to the prescriber and say to them, ‘I don’t like this medication what other ones are available?’