Older people find it difficult to access their medicines due to poorly-designed packaging, according to a new study.

Kim Notenboom of Utrecht University, was on Wednesday defending her PhD thesis promoting patient-friendly medicine and packaging, alongside a symposium on the subject.

According to the NOS broadcaster, she asked elderly people and adolescents to try to break through 12 tablets. She found the older people only succeeded one in three times, while almost all who participated had practical problems with using the medicines that could affect their health.

She told the broadcaster: ‘[The pharmaceutical industry] only pays attention to the safety, efficacity and quality of the drugs. User friendliness is almost never studied, but this can certainly have an effect on their working and on safety.

‘If a patient can only take medicines when a neighbour helps, this will cause problems when the neighbour is on holiday.’

The CBG medicine evaluation board recognised that there is a problem, and is helping draft a directive to ensure medicines for older people are easier to use.