Empowering you to meet regulatory and best practice requirements

Continual development for pharmacy team members is very important for the growth of a strong patient safety culture. This development should be supported by regular check-ins with your Patient Safety Champion or their nominated deputy.

This month, we are asking each Patient Safety Champion and any deputy Champions to reflect on how they carry out these check-ins and consider how they can support you in the best way possible. They will be checking in this month on your reflections on the case study in this edition of The Professional Standard and on how the pharmacy team can ensure the updated High Risk Medicines Supporting Guidance for valproate is implemented effectively in stores.

Please make the most of this valuable time with your Champion or their deputy. Please consider offering constructive feedback on how these check-ins could support your development. Where you identify opportunities for learning, either individually or for the whole pharmacy team, consider setting SMART-ER actions in your Monthly Patient Safety Review to address these.

The High Risk Medicines Supporting Guidance for the supply of valproate has been updated to include information relevant for male patients and updated information relevant to female patients. A printed copy accompanies the paper version of this edition of The Professional Standard and is also available via BootsLive and Pharmacy Unscripted, and is available on MyHub, in the 'Reference SOP' section of the associated SOPs.

Providing the ‘top tips’ leaflet: The ‘Tips to help keep you healthy on your trip’ leaflet provides important travel health advice and should be given to every traveller as part of their travel service consultation. The leaflet contains information about managing disease risks from contaminated food and water, animals, mosquitoes and other insects, and those spread via bodily fluids. Other topics covered in the leaflet include sun protection, personal safety and being alert to the signs and symptoms of disease after returning home.

Advice for pregnant women: Pregnant women should be advised to visit their GP to receive Boostrix^®-IPV (DTP and pertussis) instead of the Revaxis^® vaccine as this is offered routinely as part of their obstetric care. There is not thought to be a risk to pregnant women who receive an inactivated vaccine. If a traveller has a vaccination record which includes ‘pertussis’, those delivering the travel service should be mindful that the pertussis vaccination is only given as part of combined vaccine products.

Please ensure that, where appropriate, patients are counselled on the need to ensure medication is kept out of the sight and reach of children and on ensuring the safe storage of medication when it is in their possession. There can be serious consequences if medication is taken by an individual for whom it is not intended, especially if it is taken by a child. Further guidance on when it is particularly important to provide this counselling is available in SOP DIS6 and SOP CDO3, which are available on MyHub.

Certain medication should ideally be prescribed by brand name, as different brands of the same drug are not bioequivalent or there are other factors to consider such as duration of action, or whether absorption is affected by food. It is important to be aware of such medicines, as there may be times when prescribing by brand does not take place but where the patient should be supplied with their usual brand.

An example of such a medicine is methylphenidate modified release preparations; for instance, Equasym^® XL capsules are not bioequivalent with Meflynate^® XL capsules (a relatively new brand of methylphenidate). Further information on methylphenidate modified release preparations is available on the Specialist Pharmacist Services (SPS) website.

If information is needed for a specific product, refer to the relevant Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC) and, if the brand is listed, the information in the BNF.