Government advisory board members concerned about removal of anonymity for error reports

Community pharmacists in England may face an increased risk of prosecution for a dispensing error because of changes made to their national contract, according to some members of a board set up to advise the government on the reform of medicines legislation.

Some members have expressed concern about the decision to remove the anonymity of the pharmacy in patient safety incident reports made to the National Reporting and Learning System as part of the new community pharmacy contractual framework for 2014–2015 that was published in September 2014.

The rebalancing medicines legislation and pharmacy regulation programme board said in the minutes of its September meeting that there will need to be careful monitoring of the impact of the change when it is introduced.

But the board noted that the benefits of more open reporting and the ability to learn from mistakes would outweigh any of the “perceived drawbacks”.

If the naming of pharmacies became a “serious issue” the chief pharmaceutical officer for England would raise it with NHS England, according to the minutes, which were published on 4 December 2014.