The Royal Pharmaceutical Society needs to give more publicity to pharmacists' involvement in the yellow card scheme for reporting adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to the Committee on Safety of Medicines.
This was the view expressed by Mr Christopher Green, (teacher-practitioner, Liverpool John Moores university and Arrowe Park and Wirral hospitals NHS trust) at a Hospital Pharmacists Group conference on the yellow card system at the Society's headquarters in London on February 11.
He said that very little had been done by the Society to promote ADR reporting by pharmacists. Pharmacists needed to have ADR reporting stressed to them right from their undergraduate days, so that it would be as natural to them as picking up drug interactions.
Mr Green observed that pharmacists had campaigned for 15 years before yellow card reporting by hospital pharmacists was introduced in April, 1997. However, following the introduction of the scheme, the number of reports sent in had been disappointing.