Community Pharmacy Patient Safety Group's Risk Assessment Tool: Assessing the safety characteristics of medicine (May 2017)

Summary

Pharmacy Voice’s Patient Safety Group has worked closely with the UK Medicines Information (UKMi) to further develop their risk assessment tool, which is used regularly in secondary care settings, to make the tool more accessible and valuable for community pharmacy teams. The Community Pharmacy Medication Safety Risk Assessment tool is designed as an aid in the systematic identification of potential patient safety issues associated with medicines before their introduction to clinical practice.

Content

How to use the tool

The tool can be used prospectively or retrospectively to assess products, their features, and how those could impact on their safe use. This will help determine whether any patient safety issues could arise in relation to a specific medicine. It can also be used as part of the learning process if any product-related incidents have arisen in a pharmacy. The form should be completed by a pharmacy professional and any findings, particularly where the boxes next to text marked in red have been checked, should be shared with team members and the Superintendent Pharmacist if necessary.