World Patient Safety Day
Posted in: Days to Remember 21st September 2022
Saturday 17th September is World Patient Safety Day.
And the theme this year is ‘medication without harm’.
In the spirit of ‘World Patient Safety Day’ I thought I would take a look at some products, provided by Valley Northern, which promote and facilitate medication without harm.
This, actually, isn’t an easy task. Whilst researching our products it’s clear that patient safety is front and centre of everything we do so this article could get rather lengthy, so I’ve focussed on some products where the safety dimension may not immediately be apparent.
But first, let’s take a look at this year’s theme.
The aim is to highlight unsafe medication practices and medication errors. It has been estimated that more than 237 million medication errors are made every year in England, the avoidable consequences of which cost the NHS upwards of £98 million and more than 1700 lives every year.
Medication errors are made all along the dispensing journey up to and including the consumer.
This awareness campaign urges patients to:
KNOW their medication
CHECK the dose and time
ASK their pharmacist, or other healthcare professional, if they are unsure.
Similarly, healthcare professionals are also urged to know their medication and to check they have the right patient/medicine /dose/time/route. The five ‘rights’.
It’s a sad fact that medication errors are the leading cause of avoidable harm in health care systems around the world.
Know, check and ask are central to the theme this year, with both healthcare professionals and patients being urged to have probing conversations and to check the basics.
So, as promised and in no particular order, here’s some of our products which we believe can help to get the basics right.
ProBox Cartons
Our ProBox range of cartons are branded clearly as Pharmacy Medication and pre-printed with important medication advice, with dedicated space for labels if additional information is required. They provide much higher levels of patient safety.
These cartons are a great leap forward in helping patients to know their medication. All our ProBox cartons are clearly printed as a prescription item, making them instantly recognisable as containing medication with the obvious and clear benefits to patient and child safety.
Precision® Purple Oral Syringes
These allow exact doses to be administered and the plunger clears the whole syringe to ensure that the full dose is administered.
These syringes make it much easier for patients to check the dose. They have been designed so that wash after wash the measurement markings will not fade – crucial to accurate measurement.
ProPac Prescription Bags
These bold, brightly coloured and designed bags are exclusive to Valley Northern and have safety warnings and environmental messaging printed on as standard - putting patient safety first and helping them to know their medication.
We went back to the drawing board and redesigned Prescription bags to not only emphasise patient safety warnings, but also to inform the end-consumer about how they can re-use, recycle or dispose of each bag responsibly.
Pharmasafe® Disposable Tablet Trays
Taking the right dose can be bewildering for some patients, particularly in polypharmacy. It has been estimated that between 30% and 50% of medicines prescribed for long‑term conditions are not taken as intended (World Health Organisation's world health report 2003). We have a wide range of tablet trays which are a great way to keep patient’s medications well organised and help avoid patients missing their doses, or in some cases, overdosing.
Just four examples but I’m sure you get the idea. Medication without harm is Valley Northern’s business, this is very much our territory.
I will close by pointing out some safety firsts from Valley Northern of which we’re particularly proud.
The Pro-Box cartons (mentioned above) were a UK first. We were the first company to develop Generic Printed Tablet Cartons. It seems very obvious now but before this point cartons were frequently plain with the obvious safety implications that went along with them.
Another Valley Northern first? Warning labels for dispensing pharmacists. The idea for these came from dispensing staff themselves, simple labels (housed in a handy metal dispenser) with simple instructions easily accessed for use in a busy pharmacy. These are a very simple idea but play a crucial role in reducing (or even eliminating) common dispensing errors.
The World Health Organisation wants to reduce severe avoidable medication errors by 50% globally over the next 5 years so this is a marathon, not a sprint.
We’re delighted that medication safety is being given the prominence that it deserves and we will continue to listen, innovate and improve patient safety through our products and packaging during this time and beyond.
