The alert identifies the following actions for all healthcare organisations that commission clinical homecare services:
1. Establish if medicine homecare services are used within your organisation and if incidents of omitted and delayed medicines have occurred.
2. Consider if immediate action needs to be taken locally and develop an action plan, if required, to reduce the risk and the potential risk to patients.
3. Disseminate the alert to all medical, nursing, pharmacy and other staff who are involved in the care of patients receiving medicine homecare services.
4. Report relevant patient safety incidents, including those reported to you by patients, to the National Reporting and Learning System. Include in the report the term ‘medicine homecare service’ in the text description of the incident to aid analysis.
5. Share any learning from local investigations or locally developed good practice resources by emailing: patientsafety.enquiries@nhs.net
The deadline for action for this alert is as soon as possible but no later than 9 May 2014.