Launched today by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (the MHRA), the seventh annual #MedSafetyWeek is running until 13 November to encourage widespread public engagement and improve patient safety by reporting suspected unwanted side effects related to medicines and opposed incidents involving medical devices.
This 12 months’s campaign is a very global effort and involves healthcare product regulators from no fewer than 82 countries. It focuses on the vital role played by every healthcare skilled, patient, and carer who reports a suspected side effect or opposed incident, which in turn supports the protected use of medicines and medical devices.
All medicines may cause unwanted side effects and opposed incidents may occur in the course of the use of medical devices, so it is crucial to have robust measures in place to repeatedly monitor their safety after they’re taken into clinical use. The aim of safety monitoring is to achieve more details about known unwanted side effects and opposed incidents, to seek out out about latest ones, and, most significantly, to utilize medicines and medical devices as protected as possible. Regulators operate systems to detect and analyse those unwanted side effects and opposed incidents and forestall harm to future patients.
It is vital that everybody makes a report as soon as they believe unwanted side effects and opposed incidents. This ensures that regulatory assessments are genuinely representative and may improve safety for as many individuals as possible.
The Yellow Card scheme is the MHRA’s single system for collecting suspected unwanted side effects of medicines and opposed incidents involving medical devices. These unwanted side effects and opposed incidents are then collated and swiftly investigated by the MHRA. Since its establishment in 1964 the scheme has identified quite a few issues of safety to the good thing about many, because of individual reports from medicines users across the nation.
Everyone who reports suspected unwanted side effects and opposed incidents to the Yellow Card scheme website or app, is actively participating in identifying emerging national issues of safety, in order that the MHRA can act when crucial and protect against harm.
Phil Tregunno, MHRA Deputy Director of Patient Safety Monitoring, said:
Every report made by a patient, a healthcare skilled, or a carer plays a key role in gaining knowledge in regards to the risks of medicines and medical devices in clinical use and allows rapid, targeted motion to be taken to attenuate harm and be sure that the benefit-risk stays favourable.
Reporting suspected unwanted side effects and opposed incidents to the Yellow Card website will not be just in regards to the individual involved, it helps to enhance the protection of medicines and medical devices for all patients. By reporting, you might be a part of the answer – and you might be helping to guard essentially the most vulnerable, at-risk groups from potential harm.
If you happen to, your child, or a patient in your care experiences a suspected side effect or opposed incident regarding a drugs or medical device, it is important that you just report it to us promptly. The faster you report, the likelier it’s that we are able to intervene and forestall others from experiencing untoward, serious, life-altering, and infrequently life-threatening issues.”
Minister of State for Health and Secondary Care, Will Quince, said:
Patient safety is at the center of ensuring the very best care, and this government takes it extremely seriously. I’m pleased to support this campaign which can help to further improve the protection of medicines within the UK.
I urge everyone from healthcare professionals to patients to proceed to report any opposed effects involving medicines or medical devices through the Yellow Card scheme, so potential incidents might be investigated quickly.”
Anyone can report suspected unwanted side effects and opposed incidents to the Yellow Card scheme. Reports might be submitted in several ways:
- Online at www.mhra.gov.uk/yellowcard
- Via the free Yellow Card app (available for Android and Apple devices)
- By phone on 0808 100 3352
- By paper forms available at pharmacies and GP surgeries
Healthcare professionals and providers may also use local clinical systems to make a report, corresponding to MiDatabank, SystmOne, or VISION.
Reports related specifically to COVID-19, including suspected unwanted side effects attributable to medicines, vaccines, and medical device and incidents when using coronavirus test kits needs to be made at coronavirus-yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk