A study commissioned by the GMC into the causes and prevalence of prescribing errors by Foundation Year doctors found that 8.9% of the prescriptions issued by doctors had errors, some of which could harm patients.
124,260 prescriptions were checked by pharmacists in 19 hospital trusts in north-west England and 11,077 errors were found. The errors included omitting drugs, wrong doses, patients’ allergies not taking into account, illegible handwriting or ambiguous orders.
When the hospital doctors were interviewed about their mistakes, some admitted they relied heavily on pharmacists and nurses as “safety net” to help catch the errors. It was found that junior doctors were ill prepared in medical school where they filled out only a few prescription forms a year, but have to complete dozens of prescriptions a day when they start as junior doctors.
The chairman of British Pharmacological Society (BPS) Prescribing Committee, Professor Simon Maxwell, said that the evidence indicated that there are serious medication errors and “such an error rate would not be acceptable”. He believed that focus on training in prescribing can improve the standards and is calling on the doctors to take the National Prescribing Assessment before they are qualified.
Sources :
GMC Press Release on 03 Dec 2009
BPS press briefing on 14 December 2009
A Blueprint for safer prescribing: BPS expresses concern about poor prescribing and calls for greater collaboration in solving the problem
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