Welcome to this episode of Talking Meds where your host, Jonathan Underhill, Medicines Clinical Adviser at PrescQIPP, talks to Emma Kirk who is the Medication Safety Officer Network Lead for the NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service (SPS). Emma and Jonathan explore the thorny issue of medication safety and some of the initiatives to improve this. We will look at the role of medication safety Officers or MSOs and some of the commonly seen errors such as look alike sound alike errors – LASA errors.

Emma is a nationally recognised leader in medication safety. As the MSO Network Lead, she provides strategic support to MSOs across England, driving forward the national medication safety agenda. Her work focuses on advancing safer use of medicines through education, collaboration and system level improvement. This shapes safer practices and strengthens professional networks to promote a culture of continuous learning and patient safety across the NHS.

PrescQIPP resources mentioned:

• Look Alike Sound-Alike error awareness and prevention E-learning
• Medicines safety webkit 
• Bulletin 336. Reducing opioid prescribing in chronic pain
• Bulletin 349. Look-alike sound-alike prescribing errors
• Bulletin 351. Insulin
• Bulletin 356. Stopping overmedication of psychotropic drugs
• Bulletin 360. Anticholinergic burden
• Bulletin 361. Medicines without harm
• Bulletin 373. Medicines safety

Other resourced mentioned:

• Specialist Pharmacy Service - The Medication Safety Officer (MSO) role
• Centre for Pharmacy PostGraduate Education (CPPE) Patient safety eLearning
• Health Innovation North West Coast - Medicines Safety Programme

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PrescQIPP is funded by the NHS for the NHS, and our aim is to improve medicines-related care for patients. We do this by producing high quality evidence-based resources and training, and by facilitating networks between NHS organisations and professionals.

The majority of pharmacists and other healthcare professionals across the UK can access our resources by registering and logging on to our website. If you have any difficulty accessing the website you can email [email protected] and we’ll aim to sort things out for you.

Find out more about PrescQIPP here