Ellen Van Leeuwen, Steve Williams
October 20th 2026 - 19.30h CEST
Medication-related harm is one of the most common preventable causes of illness and hospitalisation in primary care. Polypharmacy, inappropriate prescribing,and the use of potentially harmful medications can lead to adverse drug events, reduced quality of life, and unnecessary healthcare utilisation.
Medication reviews are an important form of quaternary prevention: they help identify and reduce unnecessary or harmful medical interventions while ensuring that patients receive the treatments that truly benefit them. As populations age and multimorbidity becomes increasingly common, medication reviews are becoming an essential component of high-quality primary care.
In this webinar, pharmacist Steve Williams and general practitioner Ellen Van Leeuwen will discuss how medication reviews can prevent harm, improve medication safety, and support person-centred care. Particular attention will be given to problematic polypharmacy and psychotropic medication use, with practical insights that can be applied in everyday general practice.
Join us to discover how medication reviews can contribute to safer prescribing and better patient outcomes.
About our speakers:
Ellen Van Leeuwen is a general practitioner at a community health Centre in Ghent, Belgium, and completed her PhD on the deprescribing of psychotropic medications. She is a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University, leads Psychofarmaca@UGent, and addresses both appropriate treatment initiation and discontinuation these medications. She is in charge of pharmacotherapy training within the undergraduate medical curriculum at Ghent University.
Steve Williams is a UK clinical pharmacist, independent prescriber, and founder of One Less Pill, a medicines optimisation consultancy focused on tackling overprescribing and problematic polypharmacy. With extensive experience in primary care, medication safety, and deprescribing, he has been a leading voice in promoting safer and more appropriate use of medicines. Steve is an honorary clinical lecturer at the University of Manchester and co-host of The Aural Apothecary podcast, where he discusses medicines,healthcare, and professional practice with guests from across the healthcare sector.
Published on 18 June 2026.