Health chiefs in Brighton and Hove are aiming to halve the rate of medication errors by GPs (general practitioners).
Adam Doyle, chief executive of the Brighton and Hove Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), said in a report: “Prescribing errors in general practice are an expensive, preventable cause of safety incidents, illness, hospitalisations and even deaths.
“Hazardous prescribing in general practice contributes to around 1 in 25 hospital admissions.”
Mr Doyle said that the Medicines Management Team would work with the Academic Health Science Network for the area to bring in a new “tool“ encouraging pharmacists to play a key role.
He said: “Adoption of the tool has been shown to reduce medication error rates by up to 50 per cent in primary care.
“The tool will support practices in achievement of the new Quality Outcomes Framework (QOF) quality improvement domain for prescribing.
“Deployment will be supported by training for all practices who wish to adopt the tool.”
