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Are you currently working on an inpatient mental health ward in the UK? We would like to learn about how you feel towards restrictive practices on mental health wards. Go to https://tinyurl.com/restrictivepractices to find out more.

In unit-dose dispensing, medication is dispensed in single doses in packages that are ready to administer to the patient. It can be used for medicines administered by any route, but oral, parenteral, and respiratory routes are especially common. The system provides a fully closed loop process where the patient, the drug and the healthcare professional are identified by machine readable codes and the drug administration process is linked directly to the electronic prescription. and is fully recorded There are many variations of unit-dose dispensing. As just one example, when physicians write orders for inpatients, these orders are sent to the central pharmacy . Pharmacists verify these orders and technicians place drugs in unit-dose carts. The carts have drawers in which each patient's medications are placed by pharmacy technicians—one drawer for each patient. The drawers are labelled with the patient's name, ward, room, and bed number. Sections of each cart containing all medication drawers for an entire nursing unit often slide out and can be inserted into wheeled medication carts used by nurses during their medication administration cycles. Alternatively, electronic medicine storage cabinets can be located on wards and these are attached to medicine carts which are then filled from the cabinets. Studies often compare unit-dose dispensing to a ward stock system. In this system, bulk supplies are issued from the pharmacy; the drugs are stored in a medication room on the ward. The correct number of doses must be taken out of the correct medication container for each cycle and taken to the patient for administration. Liquids must be poured by the nurse from the appropriate bottle and each dose carefully measured. Evidence for Effectiveness of the Practice Though the practice of unit-dose dispensing is generally well accepted and has been widely implemented, the evidence for its effectiveness is modest. Most of the published studies reported reductions in medication errors of omission and commission with unit-dose dispensing compared with alternative dispensing systems such as ward stock systems. Potential for Harm Unit-dosing shifts the effort and distraction of medication processing, with its potential for harm, from the ward to central pharmacy. It increases the amount of time nurses have to do other tasks but increases the volume of work within the pharmacy. Like the nursing units, central pharmacies have their own distractions that are often heightened by the unit-dose dispensing process itself, and errors do occur. Overall, unit-dose appears to have little potential for harm. The results of most of the observational studies seem to indicate that it is safer than other forms of institutional dispensing. However, the definitive study to determine the extent of harm has not yet been conducted. A major advantage of unit-dose dispensing is that it brings pharmacists into the medication use process at another point to reduce error. Yet about half of the hospitals in a national survey indicated that they bypass pharmacy involvement by using floor stock, borrowing patients' medications, and hiding medication supplies. Unit dose drug distribution is being introduced across Europe. In Germany, a recent study showed a saving of 2.61 WTE nurses per 100 beds. There is now growing interest in UK hospitals and pilot sites to develop the system are being established.

Subject: Looking for Clinical Champions (Patient Safety Managers, Risk Managers, Nurses, Frontline clinical staff) to join AI startup Hello colleagues, I am Yesh. I am the founder and CEO of Scalpel. <www.scalpel.ai> We are on a mission to make surgery safer and more efficient with ZERO preventable incidents across the globe. We are building an AI (artificially intelligent) assistant for surgical teams so that they can perform safer and more efficient operations. (I know AI is vaguely used everywhere these days, to be very specific, we use a sensor fusion approach and deploy Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing and Data Analytics in the operating room to address preventable patient safety incidents in surgery.) We have been working for multiple NHS trusts including Leeds, Birmingham and Glasgow for the past two years. For a successful adoption of our technology into the wider healthcare ecosystem, we are looking for champion clinicians who have a deeper understanding of the pitfalls in the current surgical safety protocols, innovation process in healthcare and would like to make a true difference with cutting edge technology. You will be part of a collaborative and growing team of engineers and data scientists based in our central London office. This role is an opportunity for you to collaborate in making a difference in billions of lives that lack access to safe surgery. Please contact me for further details. Thank you Yesh yesh@scalpel.ai

Way back in March I applied to re-join the NHS to help with COVID-19. I am a mental health nurse prescriber with an unblemished clinical record. I have had an unusual career which includes working in senior management before returning to clinical work in 2002. I have also helped deliver several projects that achieved nation recognition, including one that was highly commented by NICE in 2015, and one that was presented at the NICE Annual Conference in 2018. Several examples of my work can be found on the NICE Shared Learning resource pages. Since applying as an NHS returner. I have been interviewed online 6 times by 3 different organisations, all repeating the same questions. I was told that the area of work I felt best suited to working in - primary care/ community / mental health , specialising in prescribing and multi-morbidity - was in demand. A reference has been taken up and my DBS check eventually came through. I also received several (mostly duplicated) emails. On 29th June I received a call from the acute trust in Cornwall about returning. I explained that I had specified community / primary care as I have no recent acute hospital experience. The caller said they would pass me over to NHS Kernow, an organisation I had mentioned in my application. I have heard nothing since. I can only assume the backlisting I have suffered for speaking out for patients, is still in place. If this is true (and I am always open to being corrected) it is an appalling reflection on the NHS culture in my view. Here is my story: http://www.carerightnow.co.uk/i-dont-want-to-hear-anything-bad-whistleblowing-in-health-social-care/