Evaluate the impact of a medicines Safety Needs Indicator Tool in Child Health (SNITCH)
End of project summary
Do ‘Druggles’ Improve Medication Safety? Learning from Children.
Main Messages
Infants and children are susceptible to the effects of medicines because of their low body weight and immature organs. This increases their chance of experiencing harm from taking medicines. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health recommend that doctors, nurses and pharmacists working on children’s wards in hospitals meet to share information and learn from problems caused by medicines and mistakes. These meetings are called medicines safety huddles or ‘Druggles’’ It is thought that by talking and learning about medication problems and errors, healthcare staff become more aware of possible problems and can prevent children from experiencing harm from the use of medicines. The purpose of this work was to explore what effect ‘Druggles’ had on staff and the safety of patients on a children’s ward at a hospital by investigating the number of medicine related problems and mistakes. ‘Druggles’ were also observed and staff involved interviewed to find out the effect of the ‘Druggles’ on the way they worked.
This study found ‘Druggles’ did not effect the number of mistakes with medicines. Mistakes with medicines are rare so the effect of ‘Druggles’ on the number of mistakes may not be seen for a long time. The number of medicines problems was much lower than reported by other hospitals that do not have ‘Druggles’’ This suggests the ‘Druggles’ do improve the safe use of medicines. Staff taking part in observed ‘Druggles’ demonstrated a positive attitude towards ensuring the safe use of medicines. Doctors, nurses and pharmacists were comfortable working together, raising concerns about medicines, discussing problems and mistakes. Lessons were learnt and actions were put in place to stop problems or mistakes from happening. The importance of the ‘Druggles’ in raising staff awareness of the safe use of medicines and preventing patient harm was also described in the interviews.
This work shows that ‘Druggles’ support the safe use of medicines in patients by encouraging doctors, nurses and pharmacists to share information, learn and take action to prevent patient harm. ‘Druggles’ can be used in both adult and children’s wards. To work staff must be committed to taking part in the ‘Druggles’ and openly sharing their experiences of medicines problems and mistakes.