Bids sought by GMC for doctors' prescribing errors research
Funding for a £100,000 research project to investigate the prevalence and causes of prescribing errors made by newly qualified doctors has been announced by the General Medical Council.
The research will form the first stage of a three-phase study and will
look specifically at the prevalence and causes of doctors’ prescribing
errors in their first foundation year, leading to recommendations for
the way that basic medical education across the UK could be improved.
The study will eventually encompass postgraduate medical education and
continuing medical education.
“Safe prescribing is crucial to patient safety. Claims that there
is a link between education, training and poor prescribing are, so far,
anecdotal
rather than based on robust evidence. The GMC takes a strong interest
in these claims, and is committed to finding out more. We are confident
that this research will help shed light on the extent to which this problem
exists and identify its causes,” said Peter Rubin, chairman of
the GMC’s education committee.
The GMC is inviting tender proposals to be submitted by 9 May 2007. It
expects the research to be completed by July 2009. The invitation to
tender is
available online (PDF 80K).
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