Medication error: immediate action โ ๏ธ ๐
Medication error: immediate action โ ๏ธ ๐
At the bedside
- Assess the patient and any actual or potential harm immediately: ABCDE, observations, timing, drug, dose, route, formulation and amount administered.
- Call the senior clinician and ward pharmacist promptly; for toxic exposures or high-risk infusions, obtain urgent specialist/poisons advice using local systems.
- Avoid concealing a problem or merely correcting the chart without assessing the patient and planning monitoring.
Record and prevent repetition
- Secure the administration record, prescriptions, timings and relevant laboratory results; identify who must review the patient and when.
- Explain what occurred openly to the patient or representative under local duty-of-candour policy, and follow local incident-reporting and governance procedures.
- Reconcile the intended future regimen and pharmacy supply before the next scheduled administration.
Clinical safety: educational editorial draft, not an authorised NHS prescribing order. Clinical/pharmacy sign-off pending. Check local policies, BNF/BNFC, up-to-date guidance and individual patient factors before any treatment.