Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 23 January 2018 to Question 123567, if he will encourage the owners of pharmacies not meeting the standards set by the General Pharmaceutical Council to adopt technology for reducing inadvertent dispensing errors as part of their action plans to improve the services they provide and safeguard the health, safety and well-being of patients and the public.

The Department has not made any recent assessment of the level of uptake or adoption of technology for reducing inadvertent dispensing errors in pharmacies or acute settings.

There are many ways to reduce the incidence of near misses and errors, and the solution to responding to these will vary depending on the nature of the error. The professionalism of the pharmacy workforce and robust systems of governance are the first line of defence in preventing dispensing errors. New technologies, such as the as electronic prescribing, the electronic prescription service, auto-mated dispensing and barcode scanning are being adopted by pharmacy teams, which will further help reduce risks of some types of dispensing errors.

All registered pharmacy professionals and registered pharmacies are required to meet the relevant standards set by the General Pharmaceutical Council. Documenting, reflecting and learning from near misses, dispensing errors or incidents is critical to compliance with the standards and ensuring that patients and the public receive safe and effective care from pharmacy.