Highlands buck national trend on adverse drug reactions
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The Yellow Card Centre for Scotland, the organisation responsible for helping to make medicines safer, has recently published a report indicating NHS Highland is the second highest Health Board in Scotland for reporting adverse drugs reactions.
The figures taken from April 2012 until May last year are in stark contrast to national statistics, which show the number of reports have been on the decline since 2008.
The report indicated that NHS Highland’s reporting figures increased slightly from 80 in 2011/12 to 84 the year after and that the reporting rate per 100,000 population was significantly higher, at 27, than the Scottish average of 16.
NHS Highland medicines management development nurse, Ruth Miller, said on behalf of the Medicine Management Safety subgroup for NHS Highland: "This is a very positive result for NHS Highland as reporting side effects impacts on patient safety and assists the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in monitoring the safety of the medicines and vaccines that are on the market.
"Information from Yellow Card reports are continually assessed at the MHRA by a team of medicine safety experts who study the benefits and risks of medicines.
"If a new side effect is identified, information is carefully considered in the context of the overall side effect profile for the medicine and how the side effect profile compares with other medicines used to treat the same condition."
Ruth continued: "We would encourage healthcare professionals and patients to continue reporting any adverse drug reactions by either completing the Yellow Cards found within the British National Formulary (BNF) or by completing the information on line at www.yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk."
