The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 276 No 7387 p156
11 February 2006

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Community pharmacy incident reports to increase

Community pharmacists are likely to report more incidents to the National Patient Safety Agency as the new contract beds in, Susan Williams, NPSA joint chief executive, said at its conference in Birmingham last week.

Mrs Williams added that the NPSA has been working with major chain pharmacies to ensure that IT systems minimise the chances of duplicate reporting. The national reporting and learning system (NRLS) now has 500,000 incidents reports logged and is receiving new reports at the rate of 17,000 per month.

“This shows that the reporting culture is beginning to take hold”, said Ms Williams.

All 607 organisations in the NHS are now reporting incidents to the NRLS. The majority come through the risk management systems of acute trusts, but the number of reports coming through other routes is slowly increasing.

Correction The national reporting and learning system is receiving new reports at the rate of 70,000 per month and not 17,000 per month.