This week our lead nurse for medicines management Karen Austin has asked us to share with colleagues why it's important to store medicines in their original packaging. 

Karen said "To comply with national guidance and regulatory requirements, it's important we keep meds in their orginal packaging. If we don’t, put simply, we are breaking the law and not adhering to CHFT's Medicine Code"

Other reasons colleagues shouldn't decant medicines into other containers:

Why?: To minimise patient safety risks from selection errors

If we don’t....we could select the wrong medicine for administration

Why?: So medicines are stored with the information leaflet about that particular medicine

If we don’t....we can’t quickly check information on the medicine

Why?: Because all medicines in the box have the same batch and expiry numbers

If we don’t....we will have mixed batches and expiry dates increasing the risk of a patient being administered an expired medicine or one from a recalled batch