Advice Centre - Risk Management Issues

Reducing the chances of error will result in helping you to avoid the often unpleasant consequences of action being taken against you. It will also improve patient care.

What is risk management?

In relation to errors that can occur in pharmacy practice, risk management is what happens when an error that occurs or is anticipated is studied, its causes are identified and changes in the system are made to reduce or eliminate the chances of the error occurring in the future.

Risk Management is important because it can help you to prevent errors and in so doing it will reduce harm to patients, thus providing a safer patient care experience. PDA can help you risk manage your pharmacy practice in a number of ways.

How can The PDA help?

We provide training courses for PDA members
We provide regular feature articles which deal with any current risk management hot topics
We commission and publish research on issues relating to safe pharmacy practice
We work with relevant agencies to influence the government agenda in helping to ensure that pharmacy can be practiced in as safe an environment as possible.
We publish a list of the most frequently asked questions and answers in relation to risk management.

What kinds of claims are made against pharmacists?

An important part of the risk management role performed by PDA is to maintain an anonymised database of claims made against pharmacists and also to commission research on any patterns or trends that emerge.

As a PDA member, you are encouraged to reflect on this data as it will help you to anticipate and therefore prevent similar problems occurring in your own practice.