Electronic prescribing systems should consider patients’ weight for supply of oral paracetamol, concludes report The Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch issued the recommendation after a coroner concluded that a patient was prescribed a dose of oral paracetamol that was too high, which contributed to her death.…
Diabetes in hospital: could more specialist pharmacists reduce high error rates? Error rates for insulin and diabetes medicines among hospital inpatients remain unacceptably high, yet there is a severe lack of specialist diabetes pharmacists across the NHS.…
Access to pharmacists at all times would reduce medication errors in hospital, concludes review The review also said that wider implementation of electronic prescribing systems and an integrated electronic health record could help reduce errors.…
LloydsPharmacy reduces amlodipine and amitriptyline dispensing errors by 77% The multiple's Safer Care patient safety programme, aimed to eliminate look-alike, sound-alike dispensing errors, achieved a significant reduction in mistakes in 2020.…
Fatal mistakes: why do ten-fold medication errors in children keep happening? This feature explores the issue of ten-fold medication errors in children — currently the subject of a national investigation — and what could be done to eliminate them once and for all.…
Families are struggling to use medicines at home — we must truly involve them in their own safety Surprisingly few medicine errors in children in the home setting are reported, yet evidence suggests that parents sometimes struggle here. We can tackle this hidden medicines safety issue by putting families’ insight at the heart of our interventions.…
NHS investigation body launches inquiry into medication errors in children The Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch will explore the risks of medication errors occurring, following an incident involving a child aged four years.…
Case study: an error with a medicine containing arachis oil Many common pharmaceutical products contain refined peanut oil, which is contraindicated in patients with a known peanut allergy. This hospital pharmacy-based case study demonstrates the steps taken after a prescribing incident.…
Pharmacist-led feedback for prescribers cuts errors in hospital, study suggests A pharmacist-led feedback intervention, aimed at supporting prescribers, resulted in a significant reduction in prescribing errors in hospital, a study has found.…
Reducing risk and managing dispensing errors Pharmacy teams should understand how to minimise the risk and likelihood of dispensing errors, including methods that can be used to evaluate existing processes, as well as how to deal with errors if they happen.…