New CPPE patient safety learning campaign – February 2018

The CPPE will launch a patient safety learning campaign commencing 26 February 2018

The Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) will launch a new patient safety learning campaign, which will run from 26 February 2018 until 6 April 2018. The CPPE campaign will include a total of six weekly challenges for pharmacy teams, and provide new patient safety resources to support safe practice. The campaign also aims to help pharmacy teams identify patient safety risks, encourage reflection on identified risks and support the management of such risks.

All General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) registered pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in England will receive the CPPE “Risk Management” guide via post, which can be used in conjunction with the upcoming CPPE campaign. The guide provides background information to parts of the campaign and acts a base for one of the weekly challenges.

Examples of the weekly challenges include reflecting on practice, team discussions, carrying out risk assessments and pledging to make positive changes to practice. On completion of the six weekly challenges, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians will receive a virtual badge to add to their individual CPPE learning records, alongside the ability to download and display a poster in the pharmacy, which is supported by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre, demonstrating commitment to improving patient safety.

The NPA and the Medication Safety Officer (MSO) role
The NPA’s Chief Pharmacist, Leyla Hannbeck, is acting as the Medication Safety Officer (MSO) for all independent community pharmacies in England with fewer than 50 branches. The NPA Patient Safety Incident report form can be used to submit patient safety incident reports. In addition, pharmacy teams can also access the MSO quarterly updates, which include a summary of the most common dispensing errors reported to the NPA during the quarter, along with top tips on how patient safety in the pharmacy can be improved.

The NPA has also developed a new portfolio of standard operating procedures (SOPs) designed to ensure the safe and effective running of the pharmacy; each SOP contains patient safety elements to support in the prevention of patient safety incidents and potential patient harm.

In addition, pharmacy teams can use the following NPA patient safety resources, which have been designed to help raise awareness of medicines known to be associated with a high incidence of dispensing errors:

• “Blood glucose monitoring and compatibility equipment checker”
• “Concomitant use of alcohol with methadone”
• “Eye product identification checker”
• “Inhaler identification checker”
• “Insulin identification checker”

For further information on this or any other query, please contact the NPA Pharmacy team on 01727 891 800 or email pharmacyservices@npa.co.uk.

Produced by the NPA Pharmacy team February 2018.