Advice on antibiotics and hormonal contraceptives changed
March 15, 2011 by admin
Women taking combined oral contraceptives do not need to take extra contraceptive precautions during and after antibiotic courses of 3 weeks or less unless they have diarrhoea or vomiting, according to new guidance about drug interactions with hormonal contraceptives highlighted by the National Prescribing Centre (NPC). The exception is for antibiotics such as rifampicin that are enzyme inducers, for which additional precautions are still advised.
‘Never events’ list includes new medication administration items
March 15, 2011 by admin
The Department of Health has expanded the list of ‘never events’ - largely preventable, very serious, patient safety incidents that should not happen if available preventive measures have been put in place. The new items include wrongly prepared high-risk injectable medications, maladministration of insulin, and the wrong chemotherapy administration route.
March CKS updates include antenatal care
March 15, 2011 by admin
Antenatal care and the management of common ailments in uncomplicated pregnancies are among the new topics published on the NHS Clinical Knowledge Summaries website in March. Other new and updated topics are: boils, carbuncles, and staphylococcal carriage; knee pain - assessment; melanoma and pigmented lesions; otitis media with effusion; paronychia - acute; and whitlow (staphylococcal and herpetic).
Strong growth in pharmacist prescribing
March 15, 2011 by admin
The number of items prescribed in general practice by pharmacists increased by nearly 80% in the year to September 2010 compared with the previous year, according to a report published in February by the NHS Business Services Authority. Pharmacists prescribed more than 308,000 items in the year ending in September, although prescribing in just five Primary Care Trusts accounted for 54% of the total.
Nurse prescribing also continued to grow, with 13.6 million items prescribed by nurses in general practice in the year to September 2010, a 10.9% increase on the previous year. The vast majority are now prescribed by nurse independent prescribers rather than community practitioners.
Non-medical prescribers and pharmacovigilance
March 8, 2011 by admin
Members of the Association for Nurse Prescribing (ANP), among others, have been asked to take part in a research project, ‘Pharmacovigilance and non-medical prescribers: are they fulfilling their potential?’, funded by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
The UK-wide research is looking at nurse and pharmacist prescribers’ perceptions of pharmacovigilance and at their attitudes to reporting adverse drug reactions and the Yellow Card scheme. The research team is led by Derek Stewart, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, with collaborators from the University of Aberdeen, the University of Surrey, and Queen’s University, Belfast.
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