Medication errors

Pharmacy minister pledges to make better use of pharmacists’ expertise

The pharmacy profession is highly regarded as “can-do” in government, but it may have been underused in the past, new pharmacy minister Steve Brine, told the Royal Pharmaceutical Society 2017 annual conference.…

NPA patient safety report shows work and environment to be top factor in error incidents

Work and environment is the most commonly reported contributing factor to patient safety incidents in community pharmacies, according to the National Pharmacy Association medication safety officer’s quarterly patient safety report for April–June 2017…

Safe dispensing in community pharmacies: applying the software, hardware, environment and liveware (SHELL) model

The human aspects of the community pharmacy work system are vulnerable to medication-related errors. Established models of human error can identify actual or potential hazards, and are important in our understanding of the interaction between human and system factors that influence performance. The …

Design for dispensing: how far can we go to make packaging safer?

It is a decade since the National Patient Safety Agency issued guidance on medicines packaging design in a bid to reduce the risk of dispensing errors. But medicines that sound alike or look alike are still responsible for a large proportion of errors. A collaborative approach between manufacturers,…

Study identifies most important inhaler technique errors that are linked to poor asthma outcomes

A study of 3,660 patients across eight countries has identified the types of inhaler technique errors that are associated with the greatest impact on asthma outcomes.…

Dispensing error law needs to be challenged

The unfortunate case of Martin White ( The Pharmaceutical Journal online, 22 December 2016) certainly has features in common with Elizabeth Lee. I remember her case particularly well because I was her solicitor. It used to be accepted wisdom that a pharmacist who put the wrong labe…

No more delays with rebalancing medicines legislation and pharmacy regulation

We need fewer empty promises and more action and progress with rebalancing medicines legislation and pharmacy regulation — particularly around dispensing errors.…

Defence legislation for inadvertent dispensing errors to be laid ‘shortly’, says health minister

The UK government says it will “shortly” bring forward the necessary legislative changes that will put in place a defence for pharmacists against criminal prosecution for making an inadvertent dispensing error.…

Criminalisation of dispensing errors continues to haunt pharmacy

The suspended prison sentence passed on Northern Ireland pharmacist Martin White is deeply troubling for the pharmacy profession ( Pharmaceutical Journal online, 22 December 2016). White was convicted under section 64 of the Medicines Act 1968 for supplying a product that was not o…

Progress with rebalancing medicines legislation programme is unacceptably slow

The snail-like progress of the rebalancing medicines legislation programme continues to amaze me. In June 2014, an expert report on the programme’s impact on hospital pharmacy was completed but only uploaded onto the programme website in November 2016. It contains some radical but eminen…