Thomas Downes

As we age, changes in our bodies can affect drug exposure, leading to potentially increased risks of both medication toxicity and treatment failure. 💊

Great review article highlights major age-related physiological changes that can impact drug use:
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Scotland’s Quiet Crisis: Why Clinical Research Needs Urgent Rescue — Universities Scotland

Open letter from the heads of Scotland’s medical schools on the threat to the clinical academic workforce.

“If we do not act, we risk weakening the very system that has delivered some of the most transformative advances in modern medicine”

www.universities-scotland.ac.uk/clinicalacad...

Non‐pharmacologicaL InterVEntions for Antipsychotic‐Induced Weight Gain (RESOLVE) in People Living With Severe Mental Illness: A Realist Synthesis Introduction Antipsychotic medications are used to treat individuals with severe mental illness (SMI) but are associated with rapid weight gain and several physical and mental risk factors. Early, p.....

Our realist review from #RESOLVE study funded by @nihr.bsky.social published today
@thementalelf.bsky.social @sapc.ac.uk @cmhpcommunity.pharmsky.app

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

BMA and other national medical organisations come together as a voice for doctors in Europe to call for immediate action in Gaza

Illustrative

A study highlighting sex differences in antihypertensive prescription patterns and efficacy in primary care reveals that women achieve better blood pressure control with lower doses and distinct drug types. This calls for sex-specific optimisation in hypertensive management
➡️doi.org/10.3399/BJGP...

Falling over finishing line in race.

Great day at the North Uist Highland Games today. Just about crossed the line in the Men’s 100m Flat Race for 2nd place!

Polypharmacy Guidance:
Appropriate Prescribing
Making medicines safe,
effective and sustainable
2025-2028
Scottish Government: Effective Prescribing & Therapeutics Division
Consultation on Draft Guidance
#Pharmsky #Medsky

www.gov.scot/publications...

Just ten days left to apply for this Research Fellow position, focused on pharmacoepidemiology and deprescribing.

More information about the DIAMOND programme available at: diamond-deprescribing.eu

Full job description here (deadline July 7th): my.corehr.com/pls/rcsirecr...

Hello 👋. We are the official BlueSky account of the Journal of Multimorbidity and Comorbidity - part of Sage Journals @journals.sagepub.com

Medical journalology and questionable research practices The BJGP is the world’s leading journal in primary care and general practice. I’m happy to defend this assertion but the temptation is to reach for a metric to support the case. And of course, the obv...

The impact factors for 2024 are published today - *sigh* - so this is a good moment to send people to the editorial I wrote last month about them, the BJGP, and QRPs/journalology. #primarycare #BJGP

bjgp.org/content/75/7...

Britain on track to become a ‘National Health State’, says thinktank Resolution Foundation says half of all public spending will be allocated to the NHS and social care by the end of the decade

Please can we fund the NHS and care by taxing the housing wealth of the over 60s? At time of death, if you like. This is huge, unearned money, and going to drive damaging inequality at inheritance. Taxing workers and businesses is much worse for the economy.
www.theguardian.com/business/202...

YouTube video by Top Scotch Penicuik Pram Race 2025

Buzzing that our GP practice team won the prize for best overall costumes and decorared pram at the annual Penicuik pram race 2025 🐝

m.youtube.com/watch?v=AKFC...

Starting an antidepressant is associated with a 2-4-fold increased risk of postural hypotension in the first month in people aged ≥60 years doi.org/10.3399/BJGP... #PrimaryCare #Antidepressant #Hypotension #GeneralPractice #Research

UK’s 50 richest families hold more wealth than 50% of population, analysis finds Equality Trust says billionaires getting ‘ludicrously’ richer, with top two now wealthier than whole of 1990 rich list

"Our analysis also shows the vampiric nature of extreme wealth, which is completely incompatible with the health and wellbeing of the nation,” said Priya Sahni-Nicholas, co-executive director of the Equality Trust
Well said my cousin Priya
www.theguardian.com/news/2025/ma...

How long does general practice take? "... to my surprise, I’ve become the sort of doctor that has been in the same clinic for 20 years. I’ve never been bored, I’ve often been anxious, and I’ve been privileged to witness some of

I've worked in the same clinic for 20 years now. I never thought I'd be in one place for so long. I had a few thoughts on being a GP for a long time in the @bjgp.bsky.social
bjgplife.com/how-long-doe...

Tackling medication errors: how a systems approach improves patient safety Objectives Medication errors are a leading source of preventable harm in healthcare, affecting approximately 1 in 30 patients, with a substantial proportion resulting in severe outcomes. In response, ...

doi.org/10.1136/ejhp... Super article - drug errors cause so much harm but this is an optimistic article identifying ways to help - systems, tech, support for fallible humans 👏👏👏👏

When your Royal College and the BMA says PAs should have have a nationally set, limited scope of practice and always be supervised by senior doctors, but GMC is fine with them working autonomously with locally defined scope - ask yourself who is protecting patients from harm?

Super useful reference including key AI definitions and an approach on how to read a paper including AI in its research. Reminder that “AI… is not a panacea, and it raises both practical and ethical challenges”.

doing archival research for a paper on processed foods and single-use plastics, and it is striking how companies like Coca-Cola have been able to delay meaningful environmental action by making the same voluntary commitments over and over

This is from 1999, but could literally be from last year

Da iawn, oeddwn i di gweld hwn yn y newyddion bore ma

Our team want to know how those aged 65 years and older feel about accessing primary care health services, and if they would access these services if they had questions about their medicines.

Click here for more information: redcap.link/inform

#agingresearch #ageingresearch #polypharmacy

BJGPLife: The Kieran Sweeney Prize 2025 (A national UK prize for medical writing by GPs)
bjgplife.com/the-kie...

Suboptimal Practices in Harm Reporting: A Meta-Epidemiological Study on Metrics, Recurrence and Exposure Duration in Clinical Trials - Journal of Clinical Epidemiology www.jclinepi.com/article/S089...

US FDA building

Over 1.2 million medical device adverse event reports were not submitted to the US FDA within the deadline set by regulations, finds study.

More than 400 000 were submitted more than 6 months after the manufacturer was notified of an adverse event
@aoeverhart.bsky.social
www.bmj.com/content/388/...

This was a cross-sectional analysis using primary care data linked to hospital admissions. We examined the prevalence and association of 252 health
conditions and 23 health condition groups in adults with AF. Reinforces placing comorbidity at the forefront of AF management principles.

Health conditions in adults with atrial fibrillation compared with the general population: a population-based cross-sectional analysis Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) prevalence is rising due to population ageing and comorbidity is an increasing problem. The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence and association of coexi...

Our new study in Heart is a large-scale characterisation of conditions prevalent and associated with atrial fibrillation.

#cardiosky #medsky #GPsky

heart.bmj.com/content/earl...

Launch of new “game changing” guide to tackle overprescribing and support Government’s shifts to prevention and community - The Health Innovation Network A new guide aimed at helping primary care organisations and integrated care boards understand and address problematic polypharmacy has been launched by the Health Innovation Network as part of its nat...

The Health Innovation Network’s new guide ‘The Mechanics of Tackling Overprescribing and Problematic Polypharmacy’:

thehealthinnovationnetwork.co.uk/news/launch-...

CONTRIBUTE TO RESEARCH

Complete a survey to help understand the pathways used for coeliac disease diagnosis and follow-up...

LINK BELOW
www.wisegp.co.uk/primary-care...

@katiecharlwood.bsky.social

Realising this was a decade ago😳

Grateful to the team at Keele for giving me the opportunity to get involved in research on this topic during my Masters.