Patient safety

Ward-based pharmacy services help reduce high-risk prescribing errors in hospitals, report concludes

Ward-based hospital pharmacy services can play an important role in helping multidisciplinary teams identify and reduce high-risk medication errors, a report has revealed.…

National medication errors project shows reduction in hazardous prescribing

An evaluation of the national roll-out of the ‘Pharmacist-led Information Technology Intervention for Medication Errors’ (PINCER) project has shown that it has led to reductions in hazardous prescribing.…

New pharmacist-led network is sharing best practice in medicines for neurodiverse patients

As pharmacy professionals, we work across a wide range of sectors in various locations, within different clinical specialities and teams to deliver best practice in medicines optimisation. But to do this in a truly person-centred way, we need to keep the patient experience in mind through the …

Scottish government to appoint patient safety commissioner in wake of Cumberlege report

The Scottish government has announced plans to appoint a patient safety commissioner to represent patients who have experienced harm from health service treatments.…

Prescribing ward round with pharmacist involvement cuts errors on paediatric ICU

A daily prescribing round in a paediatric intensive care unit led to a reduction in prescribing errors and overall time spent on medicines queries and prescribing.…

Chief pharmacists advised to store specialist antidotes separately to avoid mis-selection errors

New rules for storage of antidotes will come into effect in November 2020 in response to a series of incidents, including two with fatal outcomes.…

How our hospital reduced its paracetamol overdose prescribing errors to zero

Asif Sarwar, an advanced clinical pharmacist specialising in electronic prescribing, describes how he and his team developed a tool that successfully reduced prescribing errors for patients with acute paracetamol overdose from 25% to 0%.…

We need new medication software to link hospital care to community pharmacy

As a relief pharmacist, and a locum on my days-off, there’s variation in my work — I check a plethora of interesting medications across a range of demographic groups. But there are two aspects of my work that remain unvaried no matter where I go: the dreaded desynchronisation of pa…

Unsafe methotrexate prescribing remains common in England, study finds

Unsafe methotrexate prescribing has gradually reduced but is still common, with substantial variation between general practices in England, a study in the British Journal of General Practice has found.…

Secukinumab and adalimumab comparable for first-line psoriatic arthritis treatment

Biological therapies secukinumab and adalimumab are similarly effective at improving the musculoskeletal symptoms of psoriatic arthritis, a head-to-head trial suggests.…