PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Prescriptions (4 November 2014)

NHS England is involved in a range of initiatives to improve all aspects of medication safety, including prescribing error. These include setting up a network of dedicated Medication Safety Officers (MSOs) in organisations providing National Health Service-funded care. Over 345 MSOs are now in place and have responsibility for medication safety reporting and learning from errors, including prescription errors.

NHS England and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency issued a Patient Safety Alert Improving medication error incident reporting and learning in March 2014, and potential Patient Safety Alerts are under development that will aim to improve the safe prescribing of glucose test strips, naloxone and low molecular weight heparin.

NHS England has commissioned the development of a new Medication Safety Thermometer, which is a ‘point prevalence’ survey tool available for providers to help them measure the prevalence of certain medication incidents in their care and so facilitate quality improvement projects to tackle leading causes of harm. Details of the Medication Safety Thermometer are available at:

http://www.safetythermometer.nhs.uk/

NHS England is also involved in an initiative led by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health to develop interventions to reduce prescribing errors, as part of their Paediatric Care Online programme.