The reduction of errors involving Look-Alike Sound-Alike (LASA) is a key focus of the Community Pharmacy Patient Safety Group’s work. LASA errors regularly feature in “share and learn” sessions at our meetings and we have produced a series of resource and materials to support pharmacy teams which are available on this page.
The highest risk LASA errors are also an important part of the Pharmacy Quality Scheme and we were pleased to work closely with NHS England and PSNC to develop resources to support pharmacy teams on the front line.
You can find out more about the work PSG has undertaken to reduce LASA errors, as well as our next steps, below.
To support pharmacy teams in their safety huddle discussions around LASA errors, a series of one-pager resources have been developed, inspired and informed by the Boots UK ‘Drug of the Month’ posters, which were very kindly shared with the other Medication Safety Officers (MSOs) on the Community Pharmacy Patient Safety Group.
Reducing LASA errors
At the recent Patient Safety Group Conference Victoria Steele, the Superintendent at Lloyds Pharmacy and Vice Chair of the Patient Safety Group shared learnings about reducing Amlodipine and Amitriptyline LASA errors. In the video below Victoria shares the mandatory and supplementary actions implemented in Lloyds Pharmacies which resulted in the reduction of Amlodipine and Amitriptyline errors by 77% in one year.
LASA training video
One of our members, Jackie Giltrow, MSO for Paydens Group, has produced this really helpful video explaining the risks associated with mixing up LASA medicines as well as some of the risk-minimising actions that their pharmacy teams have put in place. This video is a great way to support pharmacy students or pre-registration pharmacists in their learning, but it can also be used by practising pharmacy teams to consider any actions that could be taken in their pharmacy to reduce the likelihood of errors involving LASA medicines occurring.
A poster summarising some of the Group’s thinking and work around LASA medicines has also been developed and is available to download below.
Community Pharmacy Patient Safety Group 