Prescribing errors in general practice

It is estimated that every year in the NHS in England 237 million medication errors occur (Elliot et al, 2021); of these 21% are made during the prescribing stage and 38% are in primary care. Prescribing was introduced in legislation for nurses and pharmacists in a stepwise manner, culminating with full independent prescribing rights for nurses in 2006, with an aim of improving patient's access to medicines. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMCa) data from March 2021 suggests that 50 693 of the 730 000 NMC nurse registrants are now independent or supplementary prescribers. There is a lack of data specifically on non-medical prescribing error rates in the general practice setting, likely due to the shorter length of time that non-medical prescribers have been in practice, and lack of prescribing error data overall in primary care. This article covers what a prescribing error is, the most common errors and how to investigate and report them.