Inhaler project HSJ award

The MLCSU medicines management and optimisation team embedded in Central Lancs has won the Improving Medicines Safety award at this year's HSJ Patient Safety Awards, which recognises safety, culture and positive experience in patient care.

Our Inhaler prescribing errors project won the award under the ‘Improving Medicines Safety’ category. This project focused on enhancing inhaler prescribing practice. Through a comprehensive audit of inhaler prescriptions, we discovered that ingredient duplication within the same therapeutic drug class was often overlooked as a potential interaction or cause of side effects. We identified 360 patients with inhaler ingredient duplication errors, and nearly one-third of these errors persisted even during respiratory reviews. Armed with these audit results, we engaged with individual practices and initiated a thorough review of prescribing policies. To prevent future errors, we developed an easy-to-use reference guide for inhaler prescribing and extensively educated staff in primary and secondary care as well as community pharmacy settings. Further information on the project, including the inhaler quick reference guide, developed to support learning from the audit findings, can be found here https://www.midlandsandlancashirecsu.nhs.uk/case-studies/inhaler-prescribing-errors-identifying-risks-and-improving-patient-safety/

We are now working with colleagues in the Medicines Optimisation Team across the ICB to further apply learning in this area.