NHS Improvement consulted from December 2018 - February 2019 on proposals for a new national patient safety strategy to support the NHS to be the safest healthcare system in the world. The strategy is being developed alongside the NHS Long Term Plan and will be relevant to all providers of NHS care, including community pharmacy. The … Continue reading Developing the NHS patient safety strategy
Resources
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 … Continue reading Look-Alike Sound-Alike medicines
In June 2018, NHS improvement, the British Dietetic Association and the Royal College of Speech and Language therapists issued a Patient Safety Alert regarding the use of food thickening (or texture modifying) products for people with swallowing difficulties (dysphagia). There have been a number of incidents reported to the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS) … Continue reading Safer modification of food and drink
Valproate medicines are used in the treatment of epilepsy, bipolar disorder and occasionally to prevent migraine headaches. If taken during pregnancy, there is a significant risk that babies may be born with birth defects. Women and girls using valproate medicines must now be protected by a Pregnancy Prevention Programme, which brings valproate in line with other … Continue reading Valproate safety
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced on 6 February 2018 that he was asking Professor Sir Norman Williams to conduct a rapid policy review into the issues pertaining to gross negligence manslaughter in healthcare. Working with stakeholders, the Review considered: how to ensure healthcare professionals are adequately informed about: where and … Continue reading Williams Review
Janice Perkins FRPharmS, Chair of the Community Pharmacy Patient Safety Group, has issued a statement responding to Jeremy Hunt's recommendations for a programme of work to tackle medication error and improve medicine safety. "Whilst undoubtedly distressing, the findings of today’s reports into medication error re-enforce the importance that every part of the health and care system … Continue reading Response to medication harm reports
The Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) launched a new patient safety learning campaign, beginning Monday 26 February. This learning campaign uses a real-life patient safety incident to explore inherent risks in pharmacy practice, to support pharmacy professionals to develop and maintain a safer culture. CPPE’s patient safety campaign takes place over six weeks, with … Continue reading CPPE patient safety campaign
Some of the MSOs on the Community Pharmacy Patient Safety Group have been working closely with a collaborative of Academic Health Science Networks in the North West on a project which aims to improve the safety of medication dispensing in primary care by combining human factors and quality improvement sciences. The project uses the ‘Training … Continue reading Safer dispensing
Any community pharmacies in England looking to participate in a safety audit with data collection on the PharmOutcomes system can use the Specialist Pharmacy Service audit of anticoagulant medicines now available. Access anticoagulant audit Members of the Community Pharmacy Patient Safety Group helped pilot and develop the audit materials, which are available on the SPS … Continue reading Anticoagulant safety audit
In June 2017, a learning module for community pharmacists on the importance of reporting patient safety incidents was published in Pharmacy Magazine. The module was written with input from the Community Pharmacy Patient Safety Group and aims to help pharmacy professionals reflect on how the patient safety incident reports that their teams make contribute to … Continue reading CPD module
