2006 to 2016: Ten years of Medicines for Children
On 30th November 2016, Medicines for Children will be marking its 10 year anniversary with an online social media drive, #medicinesmatter.
#medicinesmatter will be used to promote medicines safety for parents caring for their children at home and will tie in with the work of the parent driven #notanurse_but campaign, developed by parents from the WellChild families’ network.
Our goal… reliable and accurate medicines information for all parents and carers
The aim of celebrating the 10 year anniversary is to further promote the paediatric medicines information hosted on Medicines for Children so that any parent, wherever they are, can have access to information on their child’s medicines that they need and can trust.
The #medicinesmatter online event will launch newly developed resources and advice, including the full new library of ‘How To’ instructional videos, demonstrating different ways to administer medicines to children, and medicines information cards developed by paediatricians and pharmacists.
How YOU can get involved with #medicinesmatter
Much of the activity on Wednesday 30th November will take place on Medicines for Children’s twitter account @MedsForChildren but there will also be frequent updates on the Medicines for Children website.
We would like parents and carers to get involved by tweeting @MedsForChildren with personal stories of why medicines matter to your child, your experiences of giving your child medicines at home and how having access to information on your child’s medicines has helped you. You can also email your stories and any pictures you wish to share to Medicines.Leaflets@rcpch.ac.uk.
Examples of these experiences could be:
- the difficulties faced by giving multiple medications
- advice or tips for other parents through sharing how you have overcame these difficulties
- what has helped you eg. developing your own medication charts
- situations where access to more medicines information would have helped you
You could also share photos (or videos) of the daily medicines that you give to your child, or of your medicines cabinet, to show the realities of giving multiple medicines to children with complex needs.
Alternatively you could also record videos or tweets that begin: “We are supporting #medicinesmatter because…” or “#medicinesmatter to me and my child because…”
Sign up to show your support
In addition, please sign up to our Thunderclap tweet’ https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/50341-medicinesmatter-to-parents
“Share www.medicinesforchildren.org.uk to ensure all parents can access information on their child’s meds #medicinesmatter“
This Thunderclap is due to take place on the morning of 30th November.
On the day we will also be announcing the winners of our children and young person’s drawing competition to design a Get Well Soon card.
A brief history of Medicines for Children’s ten year journey…
Medicines for Children has come a long way since it was first conceived in 2006 by the RCPCH and NPPG.
- In 2006, over 600 parents and carers were surveyed to understand what information they wanted to know about their children’s medicines and how they wanted it. The findings showed that a national resource for parents and carers was needed.
- Together with the children’s charity WellChild, 25 pilot medicines leaflets were produced using medical expertise from paediatric doctors and pharmacists, as well as input from WellChild’s parent representatives.
- The first Medicines for Children website was launched in April 2009 enabling parents to access medicines information for free, 24/7.
- In 2016, Medicines for Children now hosts over 200 medicines information leaflets and instructional videos, with many more in development. The website has 170,000 users a month (over 2 million a year) with a truly global audience of users in all 196 countries across the world.