Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce dispensing errors in community pharmacies.

The Pharmacy (Preparation and Dispensing Errors – Registered Pharmacies) Order 2018 was amended to enable pharmacists to access defences against prosecution following an inadvertent dispensing error. The defences were drafted to incentivise the reporting of errors to enable learning. A survey by the Community Pharmacy Patients Safety Group found that following the amendment, 95% of pharmacists stated that errors were now reported to improve practice.

In 2022, these defences will be extended to pharmacists working outside a registered premises. It is expected that this will lead to further reporting of dispensing errors and provide greater learning opportunities which will increase patient and consumer safety in registered premises and other pharmacy services.