Appropriate patients being switched from Warfarin to DOACs
Written by admin on Friday 3rd April 2020
We are aware that national guidance is to switch patients from Warfarin to DOACs where appropriate
The advice remains that this needs to be done as the need arises and not as a mass exercise. However, there is a lot of determination out there to do as much switching as possible if its ‘quiet’.
We therefore wanted to raise awareness of this with all community pharmacists across our patch, as we are seeing certain areas adopting this at pace. You will therefore be seeing more patients being prescribed DOACs in general and maybe much larger numbers in certain localities.
Concerns to watch out for:
- Risks of duplication of medications (Warfarin & DOAC)
- Lack of understanding by the patient
- taking DOAC and old supplies of Warfarin
- Compliance issues with the new drug (best to provide NMS as high risk medication, although appreciate very difficult to do at present)