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Found 179 results
  1. News Article
    Doctors have criticised new health secretary Therese Coffey over reports that pharmacists will be allowed to prescribe antibiotics without the approval of a doctor. According to The Times, Ms Coffey’s “Plan for Patients” will give pharmacists the power to prescribe certain drugs, such as contraception, without a prescription in an effort to reduce the need for GP appointments and tackle waiting lists. Responding to reports of the plans, Rachel Clarke, an NHS palliative care doctor and writer, wrote on Twitter: “This is staggeringly irresponsible of Therese Coffey and will cause so much more harm than good. “Doctors do not – unlike Coffey – dish out spare antibiotics to our family and friends because we’re painfully aware of the harms of antibiotic resistance. Utter recklessness.” Stephen Baker, a professor at Cambridge University and an expert in molecular microbiology and antimicrobial resistance, branded the health secretary’s plans “moronic”. He told the newspaper that the more antibiotics were used “the more likely we are to get drug-resistant organisms”. He added that it was “nuts” to consider widening access to drugs, adding that resistance against antibiotics is “clearly one of the biggest problems humanity is facing in respect of infectious disease at the moment”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 17 October 2022
  2. News Article
    Many pharmacies and physicians are forced to deny patients access to drugs, such as methotrexate, that can be used to help induce an abortion A few weeks after the supreme court’s 24 June decision to overturn the nationwide abortion rights established by Roe v Wade, the pharmacy chain Walgreens sent Annie England Noblin a message, informing her that her monthly prescription of methotrexate was held up. Noblin, a 40-year-old college instructor in rural Missouri, never had trouble getting her monthly prescription of methotrexate for her rheumatoid arthritis. So she went to her local Walgreens to figure out why, standing in line with other customers as she waited for an explanation. When it was finally her turn, a pharmacist informed Noblin – in front of the other customers behind her – that she could not release the medication until she received confirmation from Noblin’s doctor that Noblin would not use it to have an abortion. Since the supreme court’s elimination of federal abortion rights, many states have been enacting laws which highly restrict access to abortion, affecting not only pregnant women but also other patients as well as healthcare providers. As a result, many pharmacies and physicians have been forced to deny and delay patients’ access to essential medications – such as methotrexate – that can be used to help induce an abortion. Noblin is one of the 5 million methotrexate users across the US and one of the country’s many autoimmune patients. Although she was eventually given her prescription, Noblin and other patients are now forced to grapple both with a monthly invasion of privacy at pharmacies that ask them about their reproductive choices as well as the possibility of being wholly denied the medication in the future due to restrictive laws. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 26 September 2022
  3. Content Article
    Falsified, fake or counterfeit medicines are medicines disguising themselves as authentic, and they can pose significant health risks. 96% of websites selling medicines operate illegally–but research suggests that over 50% of people are not aware of this. This blog highlights the issue of counterfeit Parkinson's medications being sold illegally online. Mike Isles, Executive Director of the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacy in the EU describes their high prevalence and gives tips for people with Parkinson's on how to stay safe when buying medicines online.
  4. Content Article
    A key priority for all involved in the development, manufacture and prescription of medicines is safety. To keep patients safe, regulators and pharmaceutical manufacturers have a statutory obligation to provide product information covering the most important instructions on how to take medicines correctly. This report by Kent Surrey Sussex Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) outlines the findings of a project around the accessibility of medication information. Patients, carers, healthcare professionals (HCPs) and senior healthcare system stakeholders were asked what they think about current medicines product information, and if it could be improved using digital solutions.
  5. News Article
    An 'expanded workforce' will be delivering flu and a potential COVID-19 vaccine, under proposals unveiled by the Government today. The three-week consultation also focuses on a proposal of mass vaccinations against COVID-19 using a yet-to-be-licensed vaccine, if one becomes available this year. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is hoping new legislation could come into effect by October, ahead of the winter season. The consultation proposes to amend the Human Medicine Regulations 2012 to "expand the workforce legally allowed to administer vaccines under NHS and local authority occupational health schemes, so that additional healthcare professionals in the occupational health workforce will be able to administer vaccines". It said this would include 'midwives, nursing associates, operating department practitioners, paramedics, physiotherapists and pharmacists'. The consultation said: "This will help ensure we have the workforce needed to deliver a mass COVID-19 vaccination programme, in addition to delivery of an upscaled influenza programme, in the autumn." The consultation also said that "there is a possibility that both the flu vaccine and the COVID-19 vaccine will be delivered at the same time, and we need to make sure that in this scenario there is sufficient workforce to allow for this". Read full story Source: Pulse, 28 August 2020
  6. News Article
    Following four deaths and more than 300 incidents with steroid replacement therapy involving patients with adrenal insufficiency in the past two years, patients at risk of adrenal crisis will be issued with a steroid emergency card. All adults with primary adrenal insufficiency (AI) will be issued an NHS steroid emergency card to support early recognition and treatment of adrenal crisis, a National Patient Safety Alert has said. The cards will be issued by prescribers — including community pharmacists — from 18 August 2020. AI is an endocrine disorder, such as Addison’s disease, which can lead to adrenal crisis and death if not identified and treated. Omission of steroids in patients with AI, particularly during physiological stress such as an additional illness or surgery, can also lead to an adrenal crisis. The alert has requested that “all organisations that initiate steroid prescriptions should review their processes/policies and their digital systems/software and prompts to ensure that prescribers issue a steroid emergency card to all eligible patients” by 13 May 2021. Read full story Source: The Pharmaceutical Journal, 17 August 2020
  7. News Article
    Patients Know Best has launched an education programme which can be used by medical schools. Among the first to use the programme are undergraduate Pharmacy students at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU). The Patients Know Best platform, which recently became the first personal health record to be fully integrated into the NHS App, has been incorporated into the curriculum to facilitate simulated interactions between patients and pharmacists. This has involved training the students to use Patients Know Best to enable their use of the platform to interact and collaborate with each other. Read the full article here.
  8. News Article
    Pharmacies are warning people are at risk of not getting the flu jab unless an urgent decision is made over the winter vaccination programme. The Company Chemists’ Association, which represents large pharmacy groups, told HSJ the government and NHS England need to “urgently” clarify how many people it wants vaccinated for flu this year, as well as making changes to regulations. An expanded and successful winter vaccine programme is seen as key to avoiding potentially catastrophic demand for hospital beds, with flu demand coinciding with covid-19 surges. Malcolm Harrison, chief executive, said: “We need decisions made now. We have an ongoing dialogue with NHS England but they seem to be waiting on secretary of state’s decision on which groups need vaccinating. That is something [the health secretary, Matt Hancock] needs to make a decision about very, very soon.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 10 July 2020
  9. News Article
    More than two-thirds of black, Asian and minority ethnic pharmacists have not had workplace risk assessments for coronavirus, a survey suggests. Of the 380 hospital and community-based pharmacists surveyed by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the UK Black Pharmacists Association, 236 were from a BAME background. Of those, 166 (70%) said they had not been approached by their employer to have a risk assessment. The RPS called the results "shocking". It has called on employers to take urgent action to ensure ethnic minority pharmacists are risk assessed. Read full story Source: BBC News, 26 June 2020
  10. News Article
    Pharmacy leaders in the black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities have expressed concern that assessments of BAME staff’s susceptibility to COVID-19 are not widespread enough in community pharmacy. NHS England wrote to community pharmacies on 29 April 2020 advising employers to “risk assess staff at potentially greater risk” of COVID-19 after “emerging UK and international data” suggested people from BAME backgrounds are “being disproportionately affected”. The Faculty of Occupational Medicine later published a risk reduction framework — backed by NHS England — to assist with the risk assessments on 14 May 2020. This was updated on 28 May 2020 to include guidance from the Health and Safety Executive to “help organisations identify who is at risk of harm”. But speaking to The Pharmaceutical Journal, Elsy Gomez Campos, president of the UK Black Pharmacists’ Association (UKBPA), said she had been told by a small number of community pharmacists that “nothing has been done” in terms of risk assessing BAME staff. “I know of a few people who have been assessed and that is mainly in hospital,” she said. “In terms of community pharmacists — who I’ve had contact with so far — they haven’t even been asked to have the risk assessment done.” However, she stressed that not many from the community pharmacy sector have come forward, but “the people who have come forward have said no, it has not been done”. “People are quite scared to ask as well because it can have repercussions on their employment or their relationships [at work],” she added. Read full story Source: The Pharmaceutical Journal, 29 May 2020
  11. News Article
    A third of pharmacists cannot obtain continuous supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE), according to a survey conducted by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS). The survey found that 34% of respondents said they were not able to source continued supplies of PPE as they work in the face of COVID-19. The poll of 445 pharmacists also revealed that 94% were unable to maintain social distancing of two metres from other staff in their pharmacy, mainly because the pharmacies — and the dispensaries in particular — were too small. A further 40% of respondents said they were unable to maintain social distancing of two metres from patients. The results of the survey, which ran between 14 and 20 April 2020, have come after Public Health England (PHE) updated its PPE guidance on 10 April 2020, which recommends that pharmacy staff only wear fluid-resistant (type IIR) surgical masks (FRSMs) when in “contact with possible or confirmed cases of COVID-19” and not around other pharmacy staff. Read full story Source: The Pharmaceutical Journal, 22 April 2020
  12. News Article
    From July, hospitals will be able to refer patients who would benefit from extra guidance around new prescribed medicines to their community pharmacy. Patients will be digitally referred to their pharmacy after discharge from hospital. The NHS Discharge Medicines Service will help patients get the maximum benefits from new medicines they’ve been prescribed by giving them the opportunity to ask questions to pharmacists and ensuring any concerns are identified as early as possible. This is part of the Health Secretary’s ‘Pharmacy First’ approach to ease wider pressures on A&Es and general practice. Read full story Source: Department of Health and Social Care, 23 February 2020
  13. News Article
    The current pharmacy system in the US needs to to change now, according to Thomas Menighan, APhA Executive Vice President and CEO in a recent blog. "The current system sets pharmacists up to fail, and in turn, pharmacists are burning out at high rates", says Thomas. "This is an issue that not only puts patients at risk but deprives pharmacists of the opportunity to provide the kind of patient care we all got into pharmacy to provide". "During my time as a community pharmacist, I cherished the relationships I established with patients and understood the great responsibility that came with the trust they placed in me. Pharmacists take an oath to, among other things, “assure optimal outcomes” for patients. I can attest to the emphasis our profession places on patient safety. When it comes to medication-related errors, even one is too many." Thomas suggests the solution comes from taking a hard look at how pharmacies are reimbursed and who profits from inadequate patient care. Meanwhile, state and local pilot projects that compensate pharmacists for greater involvement in team-based care have proven that when pharmacists are allowed to provide a full range of services, costs go down and patient outcomes improve. "It’s perverse that we pharmacists are begging for the opportunity to practice the kind of pharmacy we were extensively educated and trained to practice. And who benefits from this warped system? Here’s a hint: it’s not pharmacies or patients." "We must regulate the pharmacy benefit managers who make obscene sums of money without doing a single thing to serve patients. They say they keep prices and premiums down but simultaneously fight attempts to force them to be transparent about how they supposedly achieve this. If it’s not greedy, let’s see how it works. If it really helps patients, tell us how. But they won’t. It’s indefensible." Read full story Source: APhA, 11 February 2020
  14. News Article
    LloydsPharmacy is piloting an innovative new service that offers extra help and support to mental health patients. Funded by The National Institute for Health Research Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre (NIHR GM PSTRC), which is a partnership between The University of Manchester and Salford Royal, the pilot is being carried out in ten community pharmacies in Greater Manchester. The new service, referred to as AMPLIPHY, enables pharmacists to provide personalised support to people who have been newly prescribed a medicine for depression or anxiety, or those who have experienced a recent change to their prescription. The pilot programme has been funded and designed by researchers at the NIHR GM PSTRC in collaboration with LloydsPharmacy. Central to the programme is the ability for patients to lead the direction of support they receive. They set their own goals and objectives and the pharmacist supports them in these. Professor Darren Ashcroft, Deputy Director of the NIHR Greater Manchester PSTRC, said: "The NIHR Greater Manchester PSTRC focuses on improving patient safety across four themes, which include Medication Safety and Mental Health. AMPLIPHY covers two of these areas and we believe it has the potential to make a difference to patients, by providing enhanced support for their care in the community." The pilot is set to run until April 2020 when its impact will be evaluated before a decision is made on the next steps. Read full story Source: News-Medical.net, 22 January 2020
  15. News Article
    New research from the UK’s Drug Safety Research Unit (DSRU) has found that hospital pharmacists, doctors and nurses only recorded batch numbers for biologic medicines between 38% and 58% of the time during routine hospital practice. Further, an analysis of spontaneous adverse drug reaction (ADR) reports showed that brand names were only included 38% of the time, while batch number traceability was only 15%. Because of the study results, the DSRU is encouraging health professionals to improve the recording in order to aid patient safety, suggesting that it has “some way to go to encourage health professionals to record this information.” Read full story Source: PharmaTimes Online, 7 January 2020
  16. News Article
    Only 14% of pharmacy professionals are worried about criminal prosecution when reporting a patient safety incident, compared with 40% in 2016, survey results have showed. The results of the 2019 ‘Patient safety culture survey’ of 917 pharmacy professionals, carried out by the Community Pharmacy Patient Safety Group (PSG) in April and May 2019 came after the introduction of a legal defence for dispensing errors in 2018. The survey also showed that 22% of pharmacy professionals would not report a patient safety incident inside their organisation owing to fears of criminal prosecution. This is compared with 40% of 623 respondents saying in 2016 that they would not report a patient safety incident because of the possibility of criminal prosecution. Janice Perkins, chair of the PSG, said the results “demonstrate that there have been significant positive improvements since 2016”. “Nurturing an open and honest safety culture in community pharmacies is vital. It requires everyone to feel confident in openly sharing when things go wrong to learn from errors and prevent them occurring again,” she added. Read full story Source: The Pharmaceutical Journal. 19 December 2019
  17. News Article
    Greater Manchester community pharmacies have signed up to a new national scheme, which will see patient consultations booked via NHS 111 for the very first time. The scheme launched on the 29 October is part of major plans to boost the role of pharmacists in patient care, outlined in the national NHS Long Term Plan. People who call the free NHS 111 phone service can now be offered same day consultation with their local community pharmacist, if they need an urgent supply of a prescription medicine or advice on minor illnesses. The aim of the scheme is to leverage pressure on GP practices and A&E departments, which come under increasing strain when the winter hits. Early stages of the initiative in other parts of the country found that an estimated 6% of all GP consultations could be handled by a community pharmacist, freeing up around 20 million GP appointments each year nationally. Sarah Price, Executive Lead for Population Health and Commissioning at Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership said: “Our health services are facing unprecedented challenges and that means finding new ways to deliver the standard of care that patients expect, whilst ensuring that services are sustainable and fit for the future. Doing things the way we’ve always done, is no longer an option. Greater Manchester pharmacists are rising to the challenge and becoming more closely involved in patient care, often in close partnership with other health and care professionals." Read full story Source: National Health Executive, 4 December 2019
  18. News Article
    It is a requirement that patient cards detailing information on the risks are issued every time valproate is dispensed, under Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) guidance. Only 40% of pharmacists are meeting a patient safety requirement when dispensing valproate to women, an audit carried out by the Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) has found. The drug can cause birth defects in women who take it when pregnant. In April 2018, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) stated that valproate must not be used by women and girls of childbearing age unless a pregnancy prevention programme (PPP) is in place. Duncan Rudkin, Chief Executive of the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), said pharmacies must do more to ensure the safe dispensing of valproate. Read full story Source: The Pharmaceutical Journal
  19. Content Article
    This National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) booklet presents information concerning how better design can be used to make the dispensing process safer in community pharmacies, dispensing doctor practices and hospital pharmacies. There are a number of new factors that will impact on the dispensing process, such as: electronic prescription services; auto-id and automation technologies; more responsibilities for pharmacy technicians; and enhanced pharmacy services. These factors have been incorporated into these safer design recommendations Organisations, managers and healthcare workers involved in dispensing medicines should use this booklet as a resource to help introduce new initiatives to further minimise harms from medicines.
  20. Content Article
    The Community Pharmacy Patient Safety Group conducted this anonymous survey on patient safety culture in Autumn 2021 and invited pharmacy staff from across the UK to participate. The aim of the survey was to understand patient safety practice from the perspective of frontline pharmacy teams. Both the full results and an infographic of key results are available to download.
  21. Content Article
    This 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.
  22. Content Article
    Children 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
  23. Content Article
    This is part of our new series of Patient Safety Spotlight interviews, where we talk to people about their role and what motivates them to make health and social care safer. Roohil talks to us about the vital role of pharmacists in making sure medications help patients, rather than causing harm. She highlights the global threat of substandard and counterfeit medicines, the need to improve access to medicines and the importance of having pharmacists 'on the ground' to help patients understand how to take them.
  24. Content Article
    As 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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