Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department’s has a five-year strategy for tackling medication errors and medication-related harms in NHS England.

The National Health Service approach to improving patient safety overall is set out in the ten-year NHS Patient Safety Strategy, which covers a range of initiatives that will have an impact on patient safety, including medication safety.

Additional steps taken specific to medication safety include supporting the adoption of electronic systems for prescribing and medicines administration in NHS hospitals which reduce the risk of medication errors in hospital and commissioning a report to support safety improvement in overprescribing/problematic polypharmacy.

In response to the World Health Organization Global Patient Safety Challenge, the Medicines Safety Improvement Programme was established. In 2017, the Department established a Short Life Working Group to advise on a programme to improve safety in use of medication, including the best way to measure progress. A review of progress against their recommendation is being conducted on behalf of the National Director of Patient Safety and is expected to report to the Medicines Safety Improvement Board in December.