Assess risk of injectables in all clinical areas, NPSA tells trusts
 Risk assessing the preparation and use of injectable medicines in all clinical areas is one of the recommendations of a new
work programme containing a series of five patient safety alerts issued by the National Patient Safety Agency at the end of last month.
The other four areas covered by the programme are:
• Liquid medicine
administered via oral and other enteral routes
• Epidural injections and
infusions
• Paediatric intravenous
infusions
• Anticoagulant medicines
The injectables alert suggests that health care organisations in England
and Wales should use the information gained from the risk assessment
to develop an action plan. Other recommendations are to ensure that current
protocols for prescribing, preparing and administering injectable drugs
are readily available to ward staff and to adopt a “purchasing
for safety” policy.
Regarding epidurals, the NPSA recommends that all epidural infusion bags
and syringes, whether bought externally, produced by a trust’s
pharmacy manufacturing unit or prepared in clinical areas, should be
clearly labelled “for epidural use only”. The alert also
recommends that the range of epidurals and infusions stocked by a trust
should be rationalised and that, where possible,
ready-to-use products should be purchased.
The liquid oral medicines alert suggests that oral liquid medicines should
always be drawn up into oral or enteral syringes to be measured and administered,
and that oral syringes should be available to ward staff. Oral or enteral
syringes should also be supplied to patients or carers who need to administer
oral liquid medicines with a syringe, the alert adds. Recommendations
about the design of enteral feeding systems are also made.
The anticoagulation alert recommends that the NHS adopts a standardised
ready-to-administer infusion of sodium heparin (1,000 units in 1ml) and
minimises the use of concentrated heparin products. The paediatric infusions
alert focuses on reducing the risk of hyponatraemia.
Each alert includes a recommended timeframe for implementation, and trusts
should implement all of the recommendations by 31 March 2008. The NPSA
is also issuing a range of practical tools to support NHS trusts and
health care professionals with implementation of the guidance.
The recommendations can be accessed via the NPSA
website |
Hospital
Pharmacist