An Evaluation of Oral Anticoagulant Safety Indicators by England's Community Pharmacies.

BACKGROUND: Anticoagulants are life-saving medicines that can prevent strokes for patients diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AF) as well as treating patients with venous thromboembolism (VTE), but when used incorrectly, they are frequently associated with patient harm. AIM: To evaluate the impact of community pharmacy teams on optimising patient knowledge and awareness and improving medication safety from the use of anticoagulants. METHODS: Two national audits, consisting of 17 questions assessing and improving patients' understanding of anticoagulant therapy, identifying high-risk patients, and contacting prescribers when clinically appropriate were incentivised for England's community pharmacies in 2021-2022 and 2023-2024 using the Pharmacy Quality Scheme (PQS) commissioned by NHS England. RESULTS: Approximately 11,000 community pharmacies audited just under a quarter of a million patients in total, whilst making almost 150,000 interventions for patients taking oral anticoagulants, i.e., identifying and addressing medication issues which could increase the risk of bleeding/harm. Out of the 111,195 patients audited in 2021-2022, only 24,545 (23%) patients were prescribed vitamin K antagonists. The remaining patients were prescribed direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs). By 2023-2024, this decreased to 17,043 (16%) patients. Most patients knew that they were prescribed an anticoagulant (95.6%, 106,255 in 2021-2022 and 96.5%, 101,006 in 2023-2024, p < 0.001). DISCUSSION: The audits resulted in a statistically significant increase in patients with a standard yellow anticoagulant alert card, as identified in audit 2 (73,901 66.5% in 2021-2022 to 76,735, 73.3% in 2023-2024, p < 0.001). Furthermore, fewer patients were prescribed concurrent antiplatelets with an anticoagulant (6021; 4.6% in 2021-2022 to 4975; 4% in 2023-2024, p < 0.001). Although there was an increase in the number of patients prescribed NSAIDs with anticoagulants, more of these patients were also prescribed gastroprotection concurrently (927 77.2% in 2021-2022 to 1457 84.1% in 2023-2024, p < 0.05). The majority of patients on warfarin had their blood checked within 12 weeks. Further there was an increase for these patients in the percentage of people prescribed VKAs who knew dietary changes can affect their anticoagulant medicine (16,764 67.4% in 2021-2022 to 12,594 73.9% in 2023-2024 p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Community pharmacy teams are well placed in educating and counselling patients on the safe use of anticoagulants and ensuring that all patients are correctly monitored.

Evaluation of the England Community Pharmacy Quality Scheme (2018-2019 and 2019-2020) in reducing harm from NSAIDs in older patients.

INTRODUCTION: Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are widely used for their analgesic and anti-inflammatory action, but the gastrointestinal (GI) adverse effects are a known cause of preventable harm. A medication safety audit was incentivised for community pharmacies in England in 2 successive years as part of the Pharmacy Quality Scheme (PQS) to address GI safety of NSAIDs. AIMS: To evaluate community pharmacy's contributions to NSAID safety and determine any change between audit 1 (2018-2019) and audit 2 (2019-2020). METHOD: Patients aged 65 years or over prescribed an NSAID were included in both audits. The audit tool assessed compliance with national standards relating to co-prescribed gastroprotection, referrals to the prescriber and patient advice on long-term NSAID use and effects, with responses submitted via an online portal. Descriptive analyses were performed to explore differences between the years and tested for significance using Χ2 tests. Qualitative data were analysed using an inductive thematic approach. KEY FINDINGS: Data from 91 252 patients in audit 1 and 73 992 in audit 2 were analysed. More patients were prescribed gastroprotection in audit 2 (85.0%) than audit 1 (80.7%, p<0.001). More patients without gastroprotection in audit 2 had a current or recent referral (67.5%) than in audit 1 (58.8%, p<0.001). Verbal or other communications between pharmacists and patients about their NSAID medication were reported more frequently in audit 2 (76.0% vs 63.5%, p<0.001). CONCLUSION: During two audits, community pharmacists in England reported referring more than 15 000 patients at risk of preventable harm from NSAIDs to prescribers for review. The audits demonstrated significant potential for year-on-year improvement in GI safety for a large cohort of older patients prescribed NSAIDs. This evaluation provides evidence of how the PQS can effectively address a specific aspect of medicines safety and the place of community pharmacy more broadly in improving medicines safety.

Evaluation of patients' knowledge about oral anticoagulant medicines and use of alert cards by community pharmacists.

Background Anticoagulants continue to pose high risk of harm to patients despite the discovery of novel direct-acting oral anticoagulant agents that require less monitoring than warfarin. Objective To evaluate patients' knowledge about their oral anticoagulants and the potential role for community pharmacists in optimising safety. Setting Community pharmacies in England. Methods An online survey-based evaluation conducted over a 5-month period to ascertain patients' knowledge, use of anticoagulant alert cards, compliance with national monitoring requirements for warfarin, and frequency and nature of community pharmacist involvement in optimisation. Differences between patients on direct-acting oral anticoagulant agents and warfarin were assessed using Chi squared tests. Main outcome measure Patients' knowledge and use of anticoagulant alert cards. Results A total of 1515 pharmacies participated. Of 22,624 patients, 97% knew that they were taking anticoagulants; 20% had alert cards with them at time of dispensing; 17% had no card and 10% refuted their usefulness. Patients on warfarin were more aware of interactions with over-the-counter or herbal medicines than those on direct-acting oral anticoagulant agents. Of the patients on warfarin, 82% confirmed monitoring in the previous 12 weeks in accordance with national standards, with the international normalised ratio value known for 76%. Pharmacists intervened in a fifth of the patients to issue an alert card, contact the general practitioner for a change in the prescription or due to interacting medicines. Conclusion Patients had reasonable knowledge of their anticoagulation therapy, but areas for improvement were identified. Community pharmacists are well placed to optimise the safe use of anticoagulants.

A collaborative evaluation of pharmacy interventions in the care of inpatients in community hospitals.

OBJECTIVES: To quantify medication-related errors, in particular prescribing errors, identified by pharmacists and assess their potential impact on inpatients in community hospitals. METHODS: Pharmacists recorded all interventions to optimise medication for community hospital inpatients over 14 days in November 2013. Interventions were subsequently classified by type (prescribing error; omitted or delayed drug administration; or attributable to other issues) and rated for potential clinical impact. RESULTS: 15 organisations participated in the study reporting on 4077 medication charts. In total, 52 033 medication orders were screened by pharmacists. A medication-related intervention was made on 1 in 3 charts for one or more medications. A total of 2782 interventions were recorded. The majority were categorised as a prescriber error (67%, 1872/2782). The remainder (33%, 910/2782) were not directly attributable to prescriber error; of these omitted and delayed medicine administration accounted for 11% (298/2782). Of the 1872 interventions classed as prescriber error, a third, if left undetected, might have caused moderate or severe patient harm. The prescribing error rate was 3.6 errors per 100 medication orders. CONCLUSIONS: Pharmacists reported intervening to improve the care provided to over a third of patients in this study. Two-thirds of interventions were in response to prescribing errors, a third of which, if left undetected, could have led to harm. The results suggest that inpatients in community hospitals are subject to prescribing errors at a rate comparable to those seen in acute and mental health hospitals. A clinical pharmacy service is vital to ensure patient safety in community hospitals.

Improving efficiency and safety for patients who are unable to self-administer insulin.

A one-day 'snapshot' study was conducted to determine the nature and extent of specific safety issues faced by community nurses who care for patients unable to self-administer insulin. Community teams from 19 NHS trusts reported 607 patients requiring support with insulin administration. In total, 15.1% of insulin administration documents had an abbreviation for the word 'units', which is a serious safety hazard where any resulting serious harm would be classed as a 'never event'. Pens or disposable devices were used for 52.9% of all administrations, with 16.7% using an insulin device without any previous device-specific training. Major differences were discovered between trusts in many aspects of practice and insulin use, and comparative data can be used to benchmark activity and drive safety and cost improvement For example, 50.9% of patients had insulin administered more than once a day, but individual trusts reported figures ranging from 25.9% to 66.7%. If it were possible for all 19 trusts to manage 60% of patients on once-daily regimens, total annual service costs could be reduced by about pounds 200,000, or by pounds 3.5 million across the U.K.s.