1 in 3 hospitals has no formal strategy to direct medication safety

The Authority has published an overview report of the findings of its medication safety-monitoring programme from November 2016 to October 2017.

In the report HIQA recommends that a national approach to strategic planning for medication safety is required to reduce the number of medication errors and improve patient safety with the use of medicines.

“As modern medicine continues to advance, increasing medication treatment options are available for patients with proven benefit for treating illness and preventing disease,” said Ms Aoife Lenihan, Inspector Manager in Healthcare Regulation at HIQA.

“This advancement has brought with it an increase in the risks, errors and adverse events associated with medication use.

“Therefore, it is essential that hospitals have necessary elements in place to ensure patient safety in line with best practice and research.”

HIQA said that the report finds that overall, there is “considerable potential” for improving medication safety systems by learning from the work and efforts of other hospitals.

“While collaboration between hospitals is happening in relation to improving medication safety, a greater focus on collaboration at a hospital group and national level would reduce duplicated effort, and lead to faster progression in driving collective improvement in medication safety,” according to a statement from the authority.