Prescribing will increase pharmacists’ role in the reporting
of adverse drug reactions
Pharmacists' roles in reporting adverse drug reactions (ADRs) will become increasingly important as the part they play in prescribing grows, according to Vivienne Nathanson, head of ethics and science at the British Medical Association. She was speaking at the launch of a BMA report into ADRs.
The BMA report, “Reporting
adverse drug reactions — a guide
for health care professionals”, warns that the increased availability
of general sale list medicines may be making it harder to identify ADRs.
Charles George, chairman of the BMA’s board of science, says in
the foreword: “Increased private sector availability from sources
such as newsagents, supermarkets and the internet can result in OTC medications,
including herbal remedies, being purchased with little or no support
or control from doctors or pharmacists.”
Commenting on the report, Anthony Cox, pharmacovigilance pharmacist at
the West Midlands Centre for Adverse Drug Reaction Reporting, said: “Following
the admission of pharmacists to the yellow card scheme it is gratifying
to see that the profession has performed admirably, now accounting for
about 18 per cent of reports.”
Hemant Patel, President of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said that,
as well as increasing the reporting of ADRs, more needs to be done to
prevent them occurring in the first place. “Health care professionals,
particularly in primary care, need to devote more efforts to identifying
adverse drug reactions before they result in a patient being admitted
to hospital,” he said. Medicines use reviews allow pharmacists
to identify ADRs before there is a serious risk to the health of the
patient, he added. “Patient safety could further be improved if
pharmacists were able to access more information about a patient’s
condition.”
In a separate development, researchers have found that the costs of non-compliance
with medicines are about £8bn in England (Journal of Medical
Economics 2006; 9: 27-44). Researchers found that 392,000 acute admissions in England
resulted from ADRs, accounting for about 0.7 per cent of the Department
of Health budget (based on 2004 figures). Wastage of medicines was estimated
at 2.3 per cent of total medication costs.
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Hospital Pharmacist