The legal and clinical implications of crushing tablet medication.

It has recently been estimated that 75 per cent of all older patients will fail to comply with their medication regimes at some point during their hospital stay (Wright, 2002). Crushing tablets or opening capsules in order to assist a patient with swallowing difficulties appears to be a widespread activity. There may be times when tablets will need to be crushed in order to deliver essential drug therapy; this should only be done as a last resort. Crushing tablets is a practice that has the potential to endanger patient safety and contravene legal and professional requirements.