Patient safety

Access guidance, learning and resources to support patient and medicines safety in pharmacy practice.

Patient safety is central to pharmacy practice and the safe and effective use of medicines. This patient safety hub brings together Royal College of Pharmacy standards, guidance and resources of patient safety to assist members in their pharmacy practice.

The hub also signposts members to national patient safety information and resources, the latest alerts and reports for shared learning.

RCPharm Learn

RCPharm Learn is our online learning system to enhance your pharmacy practice. Develop your knowledge and skills in a range of professional practice and clinical areas to support safe and effective practice.

• Polypharmacy: Navigating CYP3A Interactions for Safer Patient Care – supports prescribing professionals to develop the knowledge and skills required to identify, assess and manage CYP3A interactions to support safe and effective prescribing;
• Prescribing practice: professional considerations — covers safe prescribing decisions, recognising professional limitations, repeat prescriptions and unlicensed/off-label medicines;
• Remote consultations: getting started — discusses maintaining patient safety during remote consultations and recognising when a remote consultation isn’t appropriate;
• Clinical assessment skills — explores recognising red flags, distinguishing abnormal findings and safety-netting;
• Paediatric medication history taking and medicines reconciliation — this module supports you to build the knowledge, practical skills, and confidence needed to take an accurate paediatric medication history and complete a safe medicines reconciliation.

RCPharm webinar series: Exploring Human Factors

Human factors can play an important role in patient safety and are essential for understanding complex health and care systems. This four-part webinar series from the Royal College of Pharmacy explores how the way in which we work, communicate and interact with systems can influence safety in pharmacy practice.

• Exploring Human Factors 1: Truths, myths and practical insights;
• Exploring Human Factors 2: Connecting safer work practices across care boundaries – benefits of a systems approach;
• Exploring Human Factors 3: Designing systems to enhance medication safety;
• Exploring Human Factors 4: Learning from patient safety investigations – greater improvement using human factors.

Pharmacy alerts

All healthcare professionals are responsible for making use of information and advice provided on the safety of medicines and medical devices used in health and social care in their treatment of and care for patients. Further information on safety communications concerning medicines, medical devices and other healthcare products can be found on the MHRA website.

Keep up to date with national patient and medicines safety alerts, including important safety information from the MHRA, DHSC, NHS and other organisations.

RCPharm patient safety standards and guidance

Explore our professional standards and guidance to support patient safety within your organisation and help you apply good practice in your role.

Research and evidence

RCPharm conference and webinar recordings

Watch recordings from previous RCPharm conferences and webinars exploring patient safety, medicines safety and safer pharmacy practice.

RCPharm e-Library

Please see the Clinical Practice & Patient Centred Care (including Patient Safety and Medicines Safety) section of our e-Library.

RCPharm news

For the latest news and updates on pharmacy and College activities please visit our website. Below are some of our recent items around patient and medicines safety: 

• Open letter calls for NICE to review guideline in response to propranolol concerns; 
• College sets out new expectations for pharmacists working in aesthetics; 
• Royal Colleges call for review of propranolol safety information; 
• Royal College of Pharmacy updates guide for chief pharmacists to support pharmacy leaders; 
• Royal College of Pharmacy renews focus on education for pharmacists across all sectors. 

Key patient and medicines safety campaigns

World Patient Safety Day

World Health Organisation (WHO) World Patient Safety Day – 17 September is World Patient Safety Day, which calls for global solidarity and concerted action by all countries and international partners to improve patient safety.  

RCPharm has developed webpages to support the WHO campaigns. Please see below for more information: 

• 2026 – ‘Safe care for life!’ highlights the importance of safe care for people living with noncommunicable diseases (NCDs); 
• 2025 – Ensuring safe care for every newborn and child, with a special focus on those from birth to nine years old;
• 2024 – Improving diagnosis for patient safety, and the role of pharmacists in supporting safer diagnosis. 

#MedSafetyWeek campaign

#MedSafetyWeek is a social media campaign that takes place annually, usually in November, and each year there is a different focus or theme to encourage the reporting of suspected side effects. 

This year will be the eleventh annual #MedSafetyWeek social media campaign, and it will take place on 2 to 8 November 2026. The theme will be ‘side effects – don’t ignore them, report them’.

In the UK this year, the focus is on the importance of reporting suspected adverse reactions to medicines and vaccines, but MHRA are also encouraging the reporting of suspected problems with medical devices or other healthcare products to the Yellow Card scheme. Healthcare professionals are being asked to support the campaign and talk to their patients and colleagues about healthcare products and how they can report suspected problems to the MHRA by using the Yellow Card scheme.

 For more information on how you can raise awareness of the campaign please visit the Yellow Card website. 

World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week (WAAW)

WAAW takes place from 18 to 24 November each year and is led globally by the World Health Organization (WHO). It aims to increase awareness of global antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and to encourage best practices among the public, health workers and policy makers to avoid the further emergence and spread of drug-resistant infections. For more information on this campaign and how you can support please visit the WHO website.  

Learning from others

Prevention of Future Death Reports (Regulation 28)

Following an inquest or investigation into a death, a coroner may issue a Regulation 28 Prevent Future Deaths (PFD) report to a person, organisation, local authority, government department or agency, where the coroner believes that action to address some of the identified concerns should be taken to prevent future deaths. Receiving individuals or organisations have a statutory obligation to respond to the coroner’s PFD report within 56 days showing how they have made changes according to the Coroner’s recommendations, or how they intend to. All Prevention of Future Death Reports are usually published on the Judiciary website.  

Learn from Prevention of Future Death Reports, including RCPharm responses to Regulation 28s and related articles highlighting important learning for pharmacy practice.  

RCPharm responses to Regulation 28, prevention of future deaths reports: 

• 19-12-2025: Paula Doreen Hughes 
• 19-6-2025: Simon Hockenhull 
• 13-01-2025: Ava Hodgkinson 
• 9-01-2025: David Crompton  
• 27-12-2024: Oliver Winson  
• 2-12-2024: Oliver Billings 

Pharmaceutical Journal articles on Prevention of Future Death Reports:

For recently published PJ articles on learning from Prevention of Future Death reports, please click here.

HSSIB (Health Services Safety Investigations Body)

The HSSIB are a fully independent arm’s length body of the Department of Health and Social Care. They investigate patient safety concerns across the NHS in England and in independent healthcare settings where safety learning could also help to improve NHS care.  

HSSIB investigations produce findings that identify where actions can be taken to improve patient safety. These are shared in full in their reports, which are published in the patient safety investigations section. 

National patient safety professional resources

Explore trusted resources from national organisations to keep up to date with patient and medicines safety and support safer pharmacy practice.

England

• NHS England » The NHS Patient Safety Strategy; 
• NHS Patient Safety; 
  • Patient Safety Syllabus; 
  • Curriculum Guidance for Delivering the NHS Patient Safety Syllabus; 
  • Patient Safety Syllabus Training; 
  • PSIRF (Patient Safety Incident Response Framework);  
  • Learn from Patient Safety Events (LFPSE). 
• Home – Patient Safety Commissioner. 

Scotland

• Patient Safety Zone | Turas | Learn; 
• NHS Scotland | Right Decision Service; 
• Public Health Scotland | National Therapeutics Indicators Data Visualisation;  
• Health Improvement Scotland | Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP); 
  • Delivering value-based health and care: a vision for Scotland; 
  • Realistic Medicine. 
• About Us | Patient Safety Commissioner Scotland. 

Wales

• National Patient Safety Plan for NHS Wales 2026 – 2031; 
• Pharmacy: Delivering a Healthier Wales. 

Other national organisations (list not exhaustive)

• WHO – Patient Safety;  
• Specialist Pharmacy Service (SPS);
• National Poisons Information Service (NPIS);
• UK Health Security Agency; 
• Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD);
• National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE);
• General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC);  
  • Regulate – get the latest guidance and insight from GPHC e-bulletin; 
  • News – read the latest news from GPHC;  
  • GPHC Standards and Guidance for pharmacy professionals and Standards and Guidance for registered pharmacies. 
• Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacy Group (NPPG);  
• National Child Mortality Database (NCMD);
• Community Pharmacy Patient Safety Group;  
• College of Mental Health Pharmacy;  
• Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors;   
• Patient Safety Learning – is a charity and independent voice for improving patient safety. They support safety improvement through policy, influencing and campaigning, as well as the development of ‘how to’ resources such as the hub, a platform to share learning; 
• Systems Thinking Lab. 

Patient safety podcasts

• PJ Pod – explore some of the Pharmaceutical Journal podcasts aligned with patient safety; 
• RCPCH Podcasts – feature a wide range of child health topics from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, such as improving patient safety, tackling health inequalities and supporting working life and wellbeing as a health professional;
• NHS Specialist Pharmacy Services podcast series; 
• NIHR Patient Safety Research Collaboration.