Hospital Pharmacist
2006;13:69-70
March 2006

69 Safer medicines use on patient transfer — guidance launched Guidance has been launched to help reduce the number of medicine-related errors that occur on patient admission, transfer and discharge more

69 Serious incident protocol agreed Incidents in the NHS that lead to unexpected deaths or serious harm to patients should only be investigated by the police if there is clear evidence of a criminal offence having been committed more

70 Doctors support antibiotic pharmacists The importance of the role of antibiotic pharmacists in ensuring prudent use of antibiotics has been highlighted in a report, “Healthcare associated infections — a guide for health care professionals”, published by the British Medical Association's board of science recently more

69 NEWS IN BRIEF

The 14 Acts of Parliament governing the NHS in England and Wales are to be consolidated into two Acts — one for each nation. No substantive changes to the law will be introduced by this process. Recent statutes on regulating health professionals and on quality and standards that overlap with social care are to be excluded.

Consultation on four new patient safety alerts to be issued by the National Patient Safety Agency is under way. The alerts are to include details about pharmacists’ roles in preventing errors in the prescribing and monitoring of anticoagulants; the selection, management and monitoring of paediatric infusions; and the preparation of injectable medicines. Avoiding “wrong route” administration errors is also included. Consultation papers and feedback forms are available here. Closing date 31 March 2006.

Independent prescribing by pharmacists has been welcomed by members of Parliament in an Early-Day motion tabled by Laura Moffatt (Lab, Crawley) on 13 February.

Using behavioural medicine could significantly reduce the need for drug treatments, thereby cutting health system costs, according to an editorial in the BMJ (2006;332:437). Conditions considered appropriate for cognitive behavioural therapy and other psychological treatments include diabetes (where behavioural techniques can promote weight loss) and pain (where a system of behavioural instructions before surgery can lower the amount of anaesthetic required and cut the time a patient needs to stay in hospital).