Hospital Pharmacist
Vol 11 No 8 p307
September 2004

News summary

Oral methotrexate safety alert issued

Oral methotrexate is the subject of a patient safety alert from the National Patient Safety Agency. The alert, issued on 29 July, requires acute trusts, primary care organisations and local health boards in England and Wales to agree local risk reduction actions and ensure that patient information is provided before and during treatment. It also requires prescribing and dispensing software programs to be updated so that they include the latest methotrexate alerts and prompts. Trusts are also asked to review their purchasing of 2.5mg and 10mg tablets to ensure that the different strengths of the products they buy are visually distinguishable by shape and are packaged and labelled appropriately. These steps need to be taken by March 2005.

Further information is available here