reporting of dispensing errors and fear of litigation

[Fleegle]

Fleegle - There's no Irish PDA equivalent yet for locums is there? (I'm trying to do a bit of forward planning for my big move in the spring)

Short answer is no..still only IPU, which really only covers contractors, although they are happy to accept a locum's yearly payment..I don't pay anymore, as when I rang to ask what I was actually paying for, the only thing they could come up with was a diary. Most of their money appears to be spent on golf outings, as when the whole HSE thing rose its head, the IPU wrote a begging letter to members requesting €1000 (or more) from each, as they had no cash to fund the action...and all this coming from a "union"...

[DavidS]

Zo

I don't think it is legal, so I stop them doing it. I think if you need a label 1cm below the name of the drug, so you don't have to look at the other side of the pack, you are lazy beyond belief!

well, I am lazy beyond belief, but i find that insisting on this helps others as well as myself find the errors.

[DavidS]

A locum dispensed and checked MST on my day off. Should have been 10mg, dispensed 60mg. All bagged up in CD cupboard. I gave it out, didn't check inside bag. Discovered error whilst doing routine CD stock check. Contacted patient, amazingly she was fine, she realised error and had been cutting them in half! :$ Got the 60mg's back, gave her the 10mg which she should've had. Contacted GP, they were ok about it as patient had come to no harm.

Reported error to head office, do you think I need to do any more? (Bearing in mind I don't want to get struck off!) I've corrected balance in CD register by putting footnote explaining discrepancy. RPSGB CD fact sheet says no need to contact CD accountable officer if incident is resolved (which it is). Advice anyone?

Not much use to you, but, as i have mentioned elsewhere, I now check the balance and enter the script in the register before allowing the script out of my sweaty hands. This would have showed you that something strange had gone on. Try it.

[PinkGlitter]

Not much use to you, but, as i have mentioned elsewhere, I now check the balance and enter the script in the register before allowing the script out of my sweaty hands. This would have showed you that something strange had gone on. Try it.

That is my future plan, however when it is a busy morning and someone is waiting for a check, someone needs subutex supervision, someone is on the phone and another person wants to chat to the pharmacist all at the same time these good intentions sometimes go out the window!

[howe928]

To Fruitpharm
Do you think that pharmacists should have their name put to errors?

I do see your point but I still do not see that names need to be placed on these lists.

As for interventions I see them as the same as the new CPD regs. There is no pharmacist that works who does not do at least a dozen interventions and CPD applicable information phone calls a week. Maybe we do need to show our worth but all it amounts to in the end is more paperwork

agreed with Fruitfarm regarding this, the dispensing error report would be forwarded to pharmacist involved to have a read (i think that's final, never heard of pharmacist appeals to say 'that wasn't me', even though sometimes you don't think the details was correct but just can't be bother to take it any further, don't have time to mess about really) and hopefully pharmacist will review final checking process and keep final checking error to zero

an anonymous list of dispensing errors would then be created for other pharmacists to have a look and made them aware of common checking errors

not sure whether the company will anonymise the dispensing report if asked a copy by e.g. RPSGB or PCT CG team, normally they would ask for full details to be provided

No record means no proof of intervention done, that's why nowadays people keep encouraging us to record everything, to protect yourself (e.g. if somebody want to make a claim on you and you need evidences to say you checked this before who when what) and to show why pharmacists (worth the money) are spending so much time sorting out script problems and hence waiting time go up. It takes lots of time to record properly but normally just tried to do a quick recording (later got told it is not detailed enough, poor quality) and get on with other recordings and while doing all this more scripts are ready for checking and keeps piling up (so far no money is paid outside normal working hours to do recordings so have to use working hours to do recording, some employers will say you needs training on time management - checking piling scripts should be priority and record can be done later) at the end, just do what you can, too many jobs too little time

[DavidS]

I often write a one line comment on the script itself, eg warned about erthromycin with simvastatin. It then gets scanned by the ppa along with the rest of the script and would appear automatically in evidence if it ever got that far.