The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 278 No 7444 p334
24 March 2007

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News summary

European recommendations intended to improve patient safety

More than four years after experts met to discuss medication safety (PDF 4.2MB), the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers has published recommendations intended to increase patient safety and reduce adverse events in health care.

First among them is to ensure that patient safety is the cornerstone of all relevant health policies, particularly those aimed at improving quality of care.

The council also calls for coherent national patient safety policy frameworks that promote safety cultures, build patient safety into systems, make safety a management priority and emphasise the importance of learning from dangerous incidents.

It sees a need for reporting systems that are non-punitive, are independent of any other regulatory processes and preclude legal action over self-reported incidents. Despite this, it goes on to say that there should be no immunity for professionals if legal or regulatory bodies have to be told about the incident because of its consequences for a patient.

The council also says that training on clinical decision-making, safety, risk management and dealing with incidents should be promoted for all relevant health staff, including managers.