Community Pharmacy Surrey & Sussex responds to the NHS Medicines Safety Programme Consultation

Community Pharmacy Surrey & Sussex has responded to the NHS Improvement consultation seeking views about priorities for the Medicines Safety Programme.

A national Medicines Safety Programme has recently been established so that the NHS can contribute to the 3rd WHO Global Patient Safety Challenge – Medication without Harm. This aims to reduce severe and avoidable harm caused by medicines by 50%. The programme is particularly keen to engage with a broad range of individuals and organisations for advice and opinions about the programme’s priorities.

A copy of our response to the consultation can be found here, which covered the main consultation questions as well as highlighting our deep concerns about the practice of some CCGs locally seeking to increase the prescribing of ‘branded generics’ and the potential medicines safety related issues.