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NHS must do more to prevent harm to patients from prescribed medicines after leaving hospital - CQC
A new Care Quality Commission (CQC) report published 27th October highlights that the NHS may be at risk of failing to prevent harm to patients from medicines due to inadequate information sharing.
Medicine-related issues may account for 4% of all hospital admissions and over 10,000 deaths in England a year with an estimated annual cost of £466 million in England is. (Pirmohamed et al, Adverse drug reactions as cause of admission to hospital, BMJ, 2004.)
The CQC highlights areas needing improvement.
The CQC reported that there are risks to the safety of patients when they are prescribed medicines, particularly after leaving hospital. Incidents involving medication, such as prescribing errors and failures to review medication after discharge, were the fourth most commonly reported to the National Patient Safety Agency during 2008. One study estimates around 4% of all hospital admissions are due to preventable medicine-related issues.
81% of GP practices surveyed said when hospitals sent them summaries of the care they had provided to patients, details of medicines prescribed were incomplete or inaccurate ‘all of the time’ or ‘most of the time’.
The CQC also found nearly half of practices were not systematically providing hospitals with information on: previous drug reactions (24%); other existing illnesses, known as co-morbidities (14%); or known allergies (11%), when patients are admitted.
The study highlights areas needing improvement. To learn from the report click here to go to the CQC website.