The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has released its annual report on the safer management of controlled drugs.
The CQC is responsible for making sure that health and social care providers, and other regulators, maintain a safe environment for managing controlled drugs in England.
The update for 2018 includes:
• the increase in opioid prescribing across the UK
• measures put in place following the Gosport Independent Panel report
• our continuing concerns regarding lower schedule controlled drugs
• the introduction of legislation for cannabis based medicinal products.
“Our update shares the key issues raised by NHS England controlled drug accountable officers and their unaccounted-for losses of controlled drugs by NHS England area. We also give examples of issues raised and followed up through the local area networks. As in previous years, we provide data on overall prescribing trends for controlled drugs in 2018, which were broadly similar to 2017. For 2018 we show the prescribing picture for opioids in Schedules 2 to 5 prescribed in combination with benzodiazepines, pregabalin or gabapentin across CCG areas of England, based on primary care prescription data.”
“CDAOs and nominated controlled drug leads must have oversight of the use of controlled drugs and follow up any unusual use to assure themselves that the arrangements for controlled drugs in their organisation are safe. This should include timely audits and considering treating controlled drugs as high-risk medicines.”
The Safe Management of Controlled Drugs, view the full report here.