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Mar 14, 2014 · This guideline covers good practice for managing medicines in care homes. It aims to promote the safe and effective use of medicines in care homes by advising on processes for prescribing, handling and administering medicines.
- 2 Who Should Take Action
Health professionals who are visiting the care home to...
- 2 Who Should Take Action
- Introduction
- Methods
- Results
- Discussion
- Limitations
- Conclusion
Medication errors are defined as any preventable errors that occur in any part of the medication use cycle, whether or not they result in patient harm. Medication errors may be classified according to where they occur in the medication use process: 1. Prescription (e.g. inappropriate drug, illegible handwriting, route errors); 2. Dispensing (e.g. d...
This systematic review was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines.
Overview of selected studies
Searching PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus, Wiley, Cochrane Library and the grey literature yielded 183 articles; 6 duplicate articles were removed. The remaining 177 articles were screened by title and abstract based on the inclusion criteria. 147 articles were excluded as they did not fit the inclusion criteria. Scrutinising the reference lists of some of the articles retrieved in the search identified three additional potentially relevant studies; of these, one met the inclusion criteria. Fo...
Characteristics of the studies
The characteristics of the selected studies are summarised in Table 2. There were six retrospective cohort studies[15–20], five prospective cohort studies[21–25], three cross-sectional studies[26–28] and three interviews[29–31]. Five studies focused on the use of psychotropic drugs in patients with dementia[16,21,27–29], and three studies focused on medication errors involving patients with diabetes[18–20]. Four studies examined the link between using different medication systems...
Quality assessment of included studies
All observational studies assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale scored at least six points, meaning they were of good quality. The median score was seven, indicating a low risk of methodological bias overall. Most studies lost points because of the dropout rate of participants or the comparability of the non-exposed and exposed cohort. The study by Maidment et al. had a particularly high dropout rate, as some residents withdrew and some died. All studies had clearly presented aims and o...
Medication errors in care homes were common in all the studies assessed. This information is not surprising, because the patients who reside in care homes are usually older people with known patient safety risks, including comorbidities, polypharmacy, dementia, lack of physical dexterity and dysphagia. The most commonly found types of medication er...
This review has some limitations. First, the review has included only studies published in the period January 2008 to February 2021, meaning that some important studies that were published outside this period might have been excluded. The literature search was conducted by only one author (HP), although a systematic approach to database search was ...
Medication errors are common in care homes. The most frequently discovered and investigated types of medication errors in the literature were related to administration and inappropriate prescribing. Care staff are in need of support and training to be able to use medicines safely to care for vulnerable patients with multiple physical and cognitive ...
Jul 9, 2024 · Care homes without nursing must not hold stocks of controlled drugs. They can only hold controlled drugs prescribed and dispensed for an individual person. You can ask for advice on Home Office legislation by contacting the Home Office Duty Compliance Officer .
Patient safety. Globally, societies are ageing, and elderly patients take many drugs. As such, medication safety has long been a major issue in long-term care. This group of patients has substantial comorbidity and typically takes many medications, some of which are poorly tolerated in the elderly. 1 This population also frequently suffers from ...
The study showed that care home residents take an average of eight different medicines every day. On any one day, seven out of ten residents experience mistakes with their medications.
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Overview. This guideline covers good practice for managing medicines in care homes. It aims to promote the safe and effective use of medicines in care homes by advising on processes for prescribing, handling and administering medicines.
People also ask
What should a care home provider do if a resident needs medicines?
What should a care home do if a resident refuses a medication?
What is medication safety in care homes?
Who is responsible for using medicines safely in care homes?
This information covers using medicines properly and safely for all children, young people and adults who live in care homes, including those who need nursing care. In this information, 'medicines' applies to all healthcare treatments used in care homes.
