PHARMACISTS are being urged to watch out for common dispensing errors, by professional indemnity (PI) insurer, Pharmaceutical Defence Limited (PDL).
In a practice alert issued this week, the insurer flagged the top 10 drugs it sees in incident reports, with schedule 8 products, oxycodone, tapentadol/tramadol, methadone and methylphenidate, topping the list.
"It is no surprise that the top four drugs on our list are S8s," the PDL alert noted.
"Dispensing errors can happen with any drug but the top four are also prone to diversion, forgeries and theft.
"Another reason this group is overrepresented is that some of them are available in immediate release (IR) and sustained release (SR) presentations."
The alert reported that both oxycodone and methadone were involved in regulatory actions.
In the case of oxycodone, PDL advised pharmacists that "careful reference to and observance of repeat intervals, reference to Real Time Prescription Monitoring and ensuring prescriptions meet all legislative requirements will minimise your chance of being the subject of an investigation".
The insurer stressed the need to keep accurate records in relation to methadone, and to keep cancelled prescriptions for the drug separate from other S8 scripts.
PDL also noted that prednisolone, drospirenone/ethinylestradiol, sertraline, semaglutide, and atropine eye drops were among the top drugs it received incident reports about, while stressing that "alarm bells should ring" when pharmacists see scripts for carbamazepine and carblmazole, "as they can be confused and interchanged by pharmacists and dispensary technicians".
With regards to sertraline, the insurer said, "there appears to be no logical reason why sertraline is involved in a high number of error reports - perhaps the high volume of scripts and the multitude of brands available could be a contributing factor".
CLICK HERE to read the alert.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 12 Aug 22
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