Webinar series: Medication safety

Safety during transitions of care

In the first of this series, our host Dr Dan Smith talks to experts Dr Maya Kessler, Paresh Jogia and Jennifer Flatman. They discuss strategies to improve medication safety during transitions of care, the importance of accurate medication reconciliation and share best practices for medication management - including the use of technology, communication tools, and patient education. They also explore the role of healthcare providers, patients, and caregivers in preventing medication errors and ensuring safe transitions between hospital admission and discharge.

Jen Flatman

Medicines safety and governance pharmacist, Countess of Chester Hospital

Maya Kessler

Community geriatric fellow, Derbyshire

Paresh Jogia

Senior pharmacist and EPMA project lead, Sherwood Forest Hospitals

The CPD credit for this video has expired.

Problematic polypharmacy

Our experts discuss the concept of problematic polypharmacy from different perspectives, talking about their own experience and discussing some of the literature. Polypharmacy poses significant challenges in terms of patient safety, national expense, and medication management, as well as having a detrimental impact on the environment.

Professor Tony Avery

GP and national clinical director for prescribing, NHS England

Tony is a GP, a professor of primary health care at the University of Nottingham and an NIHR senior investigator. He is also NHS England’s national clinical director for prescribing.

At Nottingham, he and his team developed the pharmacist-led information technology intervention for medication errors – or PINCER - project to tackle hazardous prescribing which was rolled out nationally.

His role as the national clinical director for prescribing is to ensure the prescribing of medicines reflects the needs of the population, improving health outcomes and preventing waste.

Dr Lawrence Brad

GP and prescribing lead

Lawrence is a partner and GP prescribing lead at a large practice in Bournemouth. He is an RCGP fellow, representing clinical pharmacists. He is also a clinical teaching fellow at the pharmacy and pharmacology school at the University of Bath.

Dr Ka Ng

Orthogeriatrician, Swansea

  • 1 CPD credit until 14 June 2024 is available after watching this webinar.
  • Complete the Problematic polypharmacy form to provide feedback and access your CPD credit.

Deprescribing: Safely reducing problematic polypharmacy

This webinar features speaker Dr Lucy Pollock, who discusses case studies in this interactive session. She is joined by Professors Tony Avery and Emma Baker in the discussion and answering audience questions. 

Dr Lucy Pollock is a consultant geriatrician. She is passionate about sharing her enthusiasm for patient-centred care of older people and is the author of the book about getting older, published in 2021 by Penguin Random House. 

Professor Emma Baker is a professor of clinical pharmacology and consultant physician in internal medicine at St George's Hospital, London. She has a specialist interest in people who have multiple medical conditions at the same time and take several medications, with a particular focus on lung disease. She is director of the UK's first BSc in clinical pharmacology, clinical vice president of the British Pharmacological Society and training programme director at Health Education England.

Professor Tony Avery OBE is National Clinical Director for Prescribing, and a GP and Professor of Primary Health Care at the University of Nottingham. He is also a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Senior Investigator. He is passionate about ensuring the safe, effective and appropriate use of medicines and has worked in partnership with healthcare professionals and patients over 30 years to drive forward research and policy development in prescribing and patient safety. 

  • 1 CPD credit is available until 24 September 2024 after watching this webinar.
  • Complete the deprescribing form to provide feedback and access your CPD credit.

Published

17 April 2023

Theme

Patient Safety

Sub Theme

Using medicines safely

About

Financial support for this series was provided as an Independent Medical Education Grant from Pfizer Limited.

Further resources

Video

Medication safety shorts

A series of bitesize videos offering guidance on medication safety.

Reading

Polypharmacy: Managing medicine

This NHS Scotland Managing Multiple Medicines app and website provide information and tools to support healthcare professionals, patients and carers. 

Reading

GP Evidence

GP Evidence summaries of the evidence on the benefits and harms of treatments for long term conditions. 

Reading

WHO: Medication safety for look-alike, sound-alike medicines

This publication is one of the documents in the WHO Technical Series on Medication Safety Solutions.