errors in the giving of medicines

[grandmacath]

this is for a course i am doing, if an error is made when giving out medication what procdures need to be followered should an error happen ? can anyone help please

[crete]

if you mean in a hospital or care home setting a critical incident form must be completed and a set procedure followed.

[beryllium]

Hi grandmacath,
What type of medication? are you talking ie: wrong anaesthetic administered resulting in death? or wrong drug via a pharmacy and an adverse reaction from the patient not noticing and taking the drug?

[China Doll]

If it's for a hospital then there should be an internal policy for this that will have been taken from an national policy. The below link may help.

http://www.dh.gov.uk/AdvancedSearch/SearchResu lts/fs/en?NP=1&PO1=C&PI1=W&PF1=A&PG=1&RP=20&PT 1=policy+on+administering+medication+error&SC= __dh_site&Z=1

[grandmacath]

thank you all for your answers ,i didn't make it very clear did i ,i am doing a safe handling of medicines course , i work in a care home if an error was made when giving out drugs to the wrong client what procedures would you need to follow ? thanks for being helpfull

[crete]

your care home should have a procedure for such incidents and if they dont then why not ?

[beryllium]

it's very complicated. How do you prove it was an error and not a deliberate act of abuse? There are specific procedures as crete has pointed out with a critical incident report. Have you read this?

http://www.dh.gov.uk/AdvancedSearch/SearchResu lts/fs/en?NP=1&PO1=C&PI1=W&PF1=A&PG=1&RP=20&PT 1=policy+on+administering+medication+error&SC= __dh_site&Z=1

[beryllium]

sorry it's this one I meant to post up.... many appologies :-)

http://www.ocr.org.uk/Data/publications/specif ications_syllabuses_and_tutors_handbooks/cquar tetOCRTempFileptG02qF83r.pdf

[bednobs]

ok, you need to inform the person in charge on the shift. You would have to probably contact the patients' gp, and you need to inform the patient

[alijangra]

I would say inform the most senior person on duty, contact GP for advice and follow any instructions, inform the resident and their next-of-kin. An incident form should be filled out and a supervision should take place with the person responsible to ascertain why the incident happened and if any training needs are identified. Depending on outcome, the person responsible may be removed from the duty of dealing with meds until further training and supervision takes place.

[zimzam]

This happened to me when the charge nurse in a resedential home gave me drugs to take to a certain resident, which I did. When she came to give someone else drugs she realised that she had given me the wrong drugs that were meant for someone else. At that point she phoned the Doctor and reported what had happened. The error was also entered in the residents notes and in the drug book and the patient was monitored the rest of the shift. There was a big enquiry about it mainly to ensure that this never happened again with any resident.

[grandmacath]

thank you all for the answers ,i had got most of it rote down but i dought myself sometimes will check my answers now .possibly be back later