The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 275 No 7373 p537
29 October 2005

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News summary

Patient yellow card scheme launched nationwide

Patients who suspect they have experienced side effects can now make reports about prescription, over-the-counter, herbal and complementary medicines direct to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, following the launch of a nationwide pilot of patient yellow card reporting forms this week.

The nationwide launch follows a successful trial run in parts of the UK earlier this year. Reporting forms will be sent to pharmacies, GP surgeries and other NHS health care sites next week, and reports can also be made at www.yellowcard.gov.uk or by telephone on 0808 100 3352.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society welcomed the scheme, but warned that reports made by patients should not replace pharmacists’ reports. The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry said that patient reports will provide a valuable source of information for the MHRA and for manufacturers. But it added that patients may have difficulty distinguishing unexpected side effects from disease symptoms and other unrelated health problems and so careful analysis of the reports will be critical.

Alison Blenkinsopp, a member of the Committee on the Safety of Medicines working group on patient reporting, stressed the importance of community pharmacies as a distribution point for patient reporting forms. There are also links to the new community pharmacy contract, she added. “The Department of Health is encouraging primary care trusts to include patient reporting as one of their public health campaigns,” she said. “And it is also part of signposting, in telling patients that the MHRA is where reports should be directed.”

The patient scheme will also provide different information from that in other reports, Caroline Kelham, project manager at the Medicines Partnership, said. “Side effects that might seem trivial to a health professional may have an enormous effect on a patient’s ability to carry out normal daily tasks,” she said.