Whilst it’s the normal ‘day job’ for many of us, delivering healthcare puts people under pressure. We have to make decisions in dynamic and unpredictable circumstances, administering a variety of drugs dependant on the person we see in front of us and what we think is wrong.
We know that errors in drug administration pose a huge risk to patients. But we’re all human - mistakes can happen.
So what can we do to try and prevent errors as far as possible? Going back to the safe steps of medicine administration, we need to make sure that we have the:
We should take the time to follow a structured drugs checking procedure before we administer them - even the ones we use day-in-day-out, like aspirin and GTN for example.
Here’s a reminder of some best practice tips:
Why not download a copy of our ‘administering drugs safely’ infographic as a handy reminder?
Published, 19th January, 2017