Medicines management: Can I hide medication in a patient’s food? 

Health professionals do not have the right to administer medication to patients against their will or in a covert manner. If a patient is refusing to take medication, find out why and try and negotiate with them, says medicines management expert Matt Griffiths

Disguising medication in food or drink is not considered best practice by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), whose standards for medicines management say: ‘As a general principle, by disguising medication in food or drink, the patient or client is being led to believe they are not receiving medication, when in fact they are.’

The NMC also says, ‘the registrant would need to be sure what they are doing is in the best interests of the patient’. It adds that they are accountable for this