The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7476 p488
3 November 2007

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Medics call for standard prescription charts

Inpatient prescription charts should be standardised across the NHS, the Royal College of Physicians has recommended.

In a report on acute out-of-hours medical care, the RCP calls for inpatient admission forms, observation data and drugs and intravenous fluid prescription charts to be standardised across the NHS. The RCP also suggests that acute medical units (AMUs), incorporating in-house pharmacies, should be the hub for all acute medical care within hospitals.

This should lead, the report says, to the establishment of a single, multidisciplinary acute response team providing outreach care 24 hours a day, seven days a week from the AMU to all areas of the hospital.

Current access to out-of-hours care is also criticised in the report. “Too often patients present to acute hospitals because there is nowhere else for them to go to get the reassurance they need,” it says.

“An expansion of the range of services, providers and facilities offering unscheduled and acute medical care in the community is required.”

Information about the remit and boundaries of local urgent and emergency care services needs to improve, the RCP adds. “We recommend the development of a local navigation hub, with a well publicised single access number distinct from 999, that enables a dialogue with a competent decision maker to reassure or direct patients to the most appropriate service within the local network,” it says.