Calls for more medicine safety training

A nurse is calling for more training to help prevent hospital admissions and deaths caused by adverse drug effects.

Sophie Robert, a senior staff nurse at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital said she had seen first hand the consequences of harmful responses to medications.

She said a better understanding of preventing adverse effects of medication could help reduce pressure in the hospital.

The Committee for Health and Social Care (HSC) has declined to comment.

Figures for adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are reported through the yellow card scheme which is operated by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

There are no reliable figures for the number of incidents in Guernsey - in the UK the MHRA received a total of 40,935 UK spontaneous suspected ADR reports received in 2020.

A yellow card report is a system that anyone can use to report suspected side effects or adverse reactions to any medicines or vaccines.

It can also be used to report faulty or malfunctioning medical device incidents.

Robert said she witnessed a death of a woman from a stroke, not long after she had been given medication and submitted a yellow card report.

It was not concluded that the death was linked to the medication, but the incident convinced her more work was needed in the area due to the difficulty in identifying the exact cause of adverse reactions.

She said: "It made me realise the gaps in our services in terms of medicine safety.

"That's not just related to yellow card reports but side effects and adverse effects."

Robert is calling for more training for healthcare workers to understand adverse effects in medicine.

She also hopes to build confidence in the public to report issues "so people feel safe to be able to report these things and not get shut down".

Robert met with the committee for health and social care about providing more training, which she said had been "open and positive".

"I've seen the real good side of medicine, but I've also seen when medicine can harm. I think it's urgent, I think it should be a real top priority," she said.

Dr Linda Härmark, Director of the Drug Safety Research Unit in the UK said it is "very important to know more about adverse drug reactions" and people need to be understand how to report issues.

"I think in general the awareness about the yellow card system and who could report and why you should report, is generally quite low among the general public.

"By reporting something that you have experienced, you can help prevent that happening to someone else," she added.

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