Reducing Medication Errors

This conference will focus on reducing medication errors and improving patient care with a focus on a zero tolerance approach. The day will begin with national developments in reducing medication errors from NHS England including the effective implementation of the National Patient Safety Alert on improving medication error incident reporting and learning released in 2014, and the developing role of the Medication Safety Officer. The day will continue to look at reducing harm through medication errors using the national medication safety thermometer and the importance of involving patients in reducing medication errors.

A focus area of the conference is on developing a zero tolerance approach to medication errors – a strategy that has worked effectively for reducing infection rates, and pressure ulcer rates across the NHS. This area of the programme will look at zero tolerance prescribing, how to set the benchmark at zero, improving the quality if junior doctor prescribing and developing and assessing competence and safety in medicines administration on the wards.

The conference will continue with case study based sessions on areas including improving incident reporting and learning from incidents, reducing harm from missed doses, omitted and delayed medicines, and focusing on high risk drugs. A final interactive session will provide a step by step guide to incident investigation and root cause analysis of medication safety incidents.every patient is well looked-after – be they self-paying, insured or cared for on behalf of the NHS.