These place patients at a greater risk of toxicity from high dose statins. Greater effort is needed

to educate prescribers on the monitoring requirements by presenting the results of this audit and promotion of the local guidelines. Selleck Nutlin-3a In addition, an appropriate system also needs to be in place to ensure that safety monitoring occurs. Limitations of this audit include the small number of patients in each cohort and it was conducted in only one local hospital. RLL is supported by MRC New Investigator Grant (G1002151). 1. Eastern and Coastal Kent Lipid Modification Guidelines (September 2010). Available at http://easternandcoastalkent.nhs.uk. [Accessed 12 April 2013]. Bannin De Witt Jansen, Carole Parsons, Carmel Hughes Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK Nursing

home managers’ and nursing staff experiences of administering medications to nursing home residents with dementia were explored using semi-structured qualitative interviews. Resident-related and environmental barriers to administration were described; strategies for overcoming these barriers were identified and essential training requirements discussed. Community pharmacists were viewed as valuable resources for training nursing home staff in medication-related issues. Standards of medicines management and administration to patients are a source of concern across healthcare settings, particularly in the PS-341 nursing home context1. To date there is little known about the challenges encountered by nursing home staff when administering medications to residents with dementia and if and how these challenges are

met. This ongoing study sought to explore nursing home managers’ and staff experiences of administering medications to residents with dementia to address these research questions. Semi-structured interviews were held with nursing home managers (n = 3) and nursing staff (n = 8) from 4 nursing homes across Northern Ireland between January 2013 – April 2013. Nursing homes were recruited using a ‘snowballing’ approach; a census approach was used to recruit staff within each home. Interviews (transcribed verbatim) covered respondents’ experiences of administering medications to Dimethyl sulfoxide residents with dementia, barriers/challenges encountered, strategies used to meet these challenges and respondents’ experiences of working with other healthcare professionals to address challenges. Data was coded using NVivo 10.0 software and analysed using Thematic Analysis. Ethical approval was obtained from the School of Pharmacy Research Ethics Committee. All respondents were female; the length of nursing experience ranged from 2 to 35 years (average: 14.1 years). Four main themes were identified as follows (1) Barriers to medication administration; (2) Overcoming barriers; (3) Differences in care: dementia vs. non-dementia residents and (4) Training requirements. A number of barriers to medication preparation, management and administration were identified; these challenges arose from resident-related (e.g.