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Showing results for tags 'Pharmacist'.
Found 188 results
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Content ArticleThe Specialist Pharmacy Service (SPS) is supporting healthcare professionals with the COVID-19 Vaccination Programme in England. Read about how they are helping and the resources available.
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News Article
Locum warned after dispensing error in ‘staffing crisis’ leads to patient death
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A locum responsible pharmacist has been issued a warning after a patient died when he dispensed the wrong strength of oxycodone during a staffing crunch, the regulator has revealed. Paresh Gordhanbhai Patel supplied 120mg rather than the prescribed 20mg of oxycodone hydrochloride to an “elderly” patient while working two locum shifts as responsible pharmacist at Crompton Pharmacy at Whitley House Surgery in Chelmsford. After taking one tablet, the patient died from an “accidental” oxycodone “overdose”, the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) fitness-to-practise (FtP) committee heard at a hearing held on 11-13 September. Mr Patel admitted that he was “stressed and overtired” when he failed to notice a “discrepancy” between the prescribed strength of oxycodone and what he ordered and dispensed, The regulator heard that Mr Patel was “over-conscientious” and felt compelled “at a human level” to help out at the under-staffed pharmacy, despite the fact that it was “not safe to do so”, it added. Mr Patel admitted that his errors “amounted to misconduct” and conceded to the committee that his fitness to practise was “impaired” because he “breached one of the fundamental principles of the pharmacy profession.” The regulator heard that Mr Patel had “immediately” admitted his mistake to the pharmacy and did so again at the coroner’s inquest, where he also publicly apologised to the patient’s family. Read full story Source: Chemist and Druggist, 12 October 2023 -
News ArticleValproate-containing medicines will be dispensed in the manufacturer’s original full pack, following changes in regulations coming into effect on Wednesday 11 October 2023. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has published new guidance for dispensers to support this change. Following a government consultation, this change to legislation has been made to ensure that patients always receive specific safety warnings and pictograms, including a patient card and the Patient Information Leaflet, which are contained in the manufacturer’s original full pack. These materials form a key part of the safety messaging and alert patients to the risks to the unborn baby if valproate-containing medicines are used in pregnancy. The changes follow a consultation on original pack dispensing and supply of medicines containing sodium valproate led by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), in which there was overwhelming support for the introduction of the new measures, to further support safety of valproate-containing medicines. Minister for Public Health, Maria Caulfield, said: “This safety information will help patients stay informed about risks of valproate, and I encourage all dispensers of valproate to consult the new guidance carefully. “This continues our commitment to listening and learning from the experiences of people impacted by valproate and their families and using what we hear to improve patient safety.” Read full story Source: MHRA, 11 October 2023
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Content ArticleMedicines talk is a website hosting a collection of stories to inspire new avenues for discussion between healthcare professionals and their patients about their medicines and care. Story 1: Life is meant for laughing Story 2: What is it all for? Story 3: 'Keeping going': Are my medicines a help or a hindrance? Story 4: I look after myself Story 5: Is there anything we can stop today? Story 6: A glimpse of the future? Story 7: Polluting the planet The stories were co-authored by Professor Deborah Swinglehurst and Dr Nina Fudge, based on research conducted between 2016 and 2021 at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). The researchers studied 24 people aged 65 or older who had been prescribed ten or more different items of regular medication, through home visits, interviews and attending appointments for up to two years. They also observed and spoke with health professionals in three general practices and four community pharmacies.
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News Article
Patient safety at risk as pharmacists replace GPs, doctors warn
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Doctors are warning that patient safety is being put at risk as podiatrists and pharmacists replace GPs “on the cheap”. Dozens of family doctors have contacted The Telegraph claiming that talk of a GP shortage is “a big lie” and that they are being replaced by less qualified, cheaper staff, in a “crisis”. Documents seen by The Telegraph show staff including podiatrists, pharmacists and physician associates being used in lieu of GPs to diagnose and treat patients with conditions they are not trained in. In the most extreme cases, poorly children with viral infections, asthma-related issues and concerns about menstruation have been seen and diagnosed by a podiatrist – a healthcare professional trained exclusively to care for feet. It is not clear what happened to any of the patients afterwards, or if their parents were aware they had seen a podiatrist rather than a doctor. One GP said it was “a matter of patient safety” and the notion of “everything being supervised” did not work at a GP practice like it does in hospitals. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 4 November 2023 -
Content ArticleThis blog by the British Society for Rheumatology (BSR) shares highlights of the evidence given to a House of Lord's inquiry into homecare medicines services' governance and accountability. The witness sessions heard evidence on levers for accountability, performance and safety, e-prescribing and workforce. The blog looks at challenges faced by providers, the need for improved regulation and accountability and lack of data and KPIs. It also describes a desktop investigation being undertaken by NHS England to understand the range of arrangements that are in place and how homecare medicines services are held to account.
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Content Article
NHS England: Medicines optimisation
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Medicine management
Medicines optimisation looks at the value which medicines deliver, making sure they are clinically-effective and cost-effective. It is about ensuring people get the right choice of medicines, at the right time, and are engaged in the process by their clinical team. -
Content ArticleCommunity pharmacies in Sweden have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and new routines have been introduced to address the needs of customers and staff and to reduce the risk of spreading infection. Burnout has been described among staff possibly due to a changed working climate. However, little research has focused on the pandemic's effect on patient safety in community pharmacies. The aim of this study was to examine pharmacists' perceptions of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on workload, working environment, and patient safety in community pharmacies.
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Content ArticleA service providing bilingual medication information is helping to reduce healthcare inequalities and medical errors. Pharmacies across London are benefitting from the support of Written Medicine; a service providing bilingual dispensing labels in patients’ language of choice.
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Content ArticleThe Extensive Care Service is part of the Fylde coast Vanguard and is designed for frail elderly patients with two or more long-term conditions who are at high-risk of an emergency admission. Working closely with patients, the service aims to assist them to improve their health and wellbeing; support them to manage their own conditions and provide effective interventions when needed in order to better manage exacerbations of their conditions. One of the key components of the care model is patient activation. The service teams’ understanding of an individual’s ability to contribute to the management of their own health and wellbeing is key to ensuring the success of this approach. The model is new, different and includes the development of a unique role - a ‘wellbeing support worker’. These individuals are a consistent feature in a model which enables a fuller understanding of a patient’s ‘activation’ ability so that engagement and support can be tailored appropriately.
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Content ArticlePeople with learning disabilities are more likely to be taking multiple medicines, but labels are not designed with them in mind. This article in the Pharmaceutical Journal looks at a project run by a team at Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust in 2021, which came from a person with learning disabilities requesting medicine labelling with “the name of the tablets in big letters so I know what tablets I’m taking."
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Content ArticlePharmacies in Cheshire and Merseyside are being notified by their local hospital when a patient is discharged who might need help with their medication. The initiative, called Transfer of Care Around Medicines, is improving patient safety and quality of care – and saved the NHS in Cheshire and Merseyside an estimated £9.5 million over the three years to Spring 2019.
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Content ArticleMedication safety events with the potential for patient harm do occur in healthcare settings. Pharmacists are regularly tasked with utilizing their medication knowledge to optimize the medication-use process and reduce the likelihood of error. To prepare for these responsibilities in professional practice, it is important to introduce patient safety principles during educational experiences. The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) have set forth accreditation standards focused on the management of medication-use processes to ensure these competencies during pharmacy didactic learning and postgraduate training. The experience described here provides perspective on educational and experiential opportunities across the continuum of pharmacy education, with a focus on a relationship between a college of pharmacy and healthcare system. Various activities, including discussions, medication event reviews, audits, and continuous quality improvement efforts, have provided the experiences to achieve standards for these pharmacy learners. These activities support a culture of safety from early training.
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Content ArticleOnline healthcare services and apps can help people take more control of their health, by getting access to care easily and when it suits them. This guidance for patients aims to help patients keep themselves safe when using online health services. Produced by a collaboration of UK health organisations, it includes six top tips for accessing healthcare online: Check if the online healthcare service and healthcare professionals working there are registered with UK regulators Ask questions about how the service works Answer questions honestly about your health and medical history Find out your options for treatment and how to take any medicines you’re prescribed Expect to be asked for consent for information to be shared with other healthcare professionals involved in your care Check what after-care you will receive
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Content ArticleIn January 2023, The Patients Association celebrates its 60th anniversary. In this interview, CEO Rachel Power talks about why The Patients Association was set up and how the organisation still aims to ensure that everyone can access and benefit from the health and care they need to live well. She describes the benefits of shifting to free membership, how patient partnership is vital to improving health and care services and The Patients Association's role in highlighting the key issues facing patients to the Government. She also highlights the key role that pharmacies play in promoting health information and delivering services to the communities they serve.
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Content ArticleCraig Bradley is Product & Business Lead (Associate Director) at Shire Pharmaceuticals and Chair of the Pharmaceutical Marketing Society. Here he talks about the importance of patient engagement within the pharmaceutical industry.
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Content ArticleSamantha Gould was 16 years old when she died by suicide due to an overdose of prescribed medication on 2 September 2018. She had borderline personality disorder that meant she was at risk of deliberate self-harm and suicide. In this report, the Coroner highlights concerns about a systemic weakness in the way in which Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and primary care communicate with local pharmacies concerning 16-18 year old patients who are at risk of deliberate overdose. In spite of a safety plan agreed with Sam’s consultant psychiatrist whereby Sam’s parents would be responsible for her medication, Sam was able to pick up older prescriptions on 1 September 2018 without challenge, and it was those medications that were fatal in the combined amounts ingested by Sam.
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Content ArticleChildren born to women who take valproate during pregnancy are at significant risk of birth defects and persistent developmental disorders. As such, it is vital that women and girls are dispensed valproate safely. The General Pharmaceutical Council is reminding all pharmacy professionals of what they must do to ensure women and girls receive the right information about valproate and the risk of birth defects. The update includes
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Content ArticleA joint National Patient Safety Alert has been issued by NHS Improvement and NHS England national patient safety team, Royal College of General Practitioners, Royal College of Physicians and Society for Endocrinology, regarding the introduction of a new Steroid Emergency Card to support the early recognition and treatment of adrenal crisis in adults.
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Content ArticleDr Helen Simpson, Lisa Shepherd and Dr Steve Kell summarise the guidance and implementation of the steroid emergency card in primary care.
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Content ArticleThis webinar by the World Health Organization (WHO) is part of a series hosted to mark World Patient Safety Day 2022, which focused on the theme of 'Medication without harm'. This webinar looks at medication safety in polypharmacy, introducing the WHO technical report on Medication safety in polypharmacy. It features perspectives on medication management from patients, carers and national healthcare leaders.
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Content ArticleThis case report in the journal Cureus examines the use of dalfampridine, a drug used to improve walking in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Dalfampridine can have serious side effects including inducing seizures. Although the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends stopping the medication permanently after a single seizure episode, this recommendation is not widely known by health care professionals. The authors argue that there is a need to raise awareness of the FDA recommendation and the potential for dalfampridine to cause seizures amongst primary and secondary care doctors and patients.
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Content ArticleAs the global population ages, more people are likely to suffer from multiple long term illnesses and therefore take multiple medications. This report by the World Health Organization highlights the importance of leadership in nurturing a culture that prioritises safe, high-quality prescribing, provides guidance on medication review, and emphasises the role of the patient in prescribing decisions. It also examines the role of multi-professional teams across the healthcare system, including amongst policy makers. The report includes tools and case studies which illustrate a systematic approach that can be followed across the health and care system to ensure that patients are integral to the decisions about their medications.
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Content Article
Belfast Healthy Cities: Pharmacy Schools Programme (2021)
Patient-Safety-Learning posted an article in Medication
The Pharmacy Schools Programme is an innovative teaching resource developed by Belfast Healthy Cities. Using a health literacy approach, it is designed to be used in primary schools in Northern Ireland to help educate children about self-care, medication safety and community pharmacy services. -
Content ArticleThis article in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology aimed to calculate the medication costs of potentially inappropriate prescribing for middle-aged adults compare with the cost of consensus-validated, evidence-based, ‘adequate’ alternative prescribing scenarios. It used a Delphi consensus panel and cross-sectional study to examine primary care data of 55,880 patients aged 45-64 years old in South London. The study found that duplicate drug classes was the most costly criterion for both PIP and alternative prescribing. It identified no substantial cost difference between adequate prescribing versus PIP and the authors recommend that future studies investigate the wider health economic costs of alternative prescribing, such as reducing hospital admissions.
