World Patient Safety Day 2022 – Pharmacists key to reducing medicine harm

Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA)

The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) is tomorrow celebrating the World Health Organisation’s World Patient Safety Day, championing medicine safety on a global scale. The theme for this year’s World Patient Safety Day is Medication Without Harm.

PSA National President Dr Fei Sim said that World Patient Safety Day is a reminder for patients and pharmacists.

“Unsafe medicine practices and errors with medicine are the leading cause of avoidable harm across the world,” Dr Sim said.

PSA’s first medicine safety report, Medicine Safety: Take Care estimated that medicine-related problems cause 250,000 hospital admissions each year, with an annual cost of approximately $1.4 billion, and at least half of these hospital admissions being preventable.

“Pharmacists are the custodians of medicine safety and play a significant role in making sure that our patients are safe when taking medicines. A large part of our role as pharmacists is to talk with our patients to promote the highest standards of medicine safety to ultimately reduce the risks that lead to medicine errors and medicine-related harm.

“This is why pharmacists need to be embedded everywhere that medicines are used.”

“Medicine safety is the responsibility not only of the health care provider, but also of the patient themselves.

“On this World Patient Safety Day, we urge all Australians to check their medicine cabinet, check expiry dates, and throw away any expired medication. It is vital that all patients know their medications and always take them as instructed to avoid medicine harm. If you are unsure about anything related to your medicines, go and speak to your local pharmacist.

“While World Patient Safety Day is a great reminder of our goal to reduce medicine-related harm, we must practise safe medicine practises every day,” Dr Sim concluded.