CPPE’s latest learning campaign begins this week and focuses on the inherent risks present in pharmacy practice. It aims to find approaches to minimise these risks and improve patient safety and will run for six weeks.

The ‘Patient safety’ campaign will be supported by a ‘Risk management’ guide, giving important background to the concepts that the campaign explores. The guide will be posted out to all CPPE registrants. Weekly challenges will follow the events of a patient safety incident to help pharmacy professionals learn how to reduce risk and develop and maintain a safer culture.

In the first two weeks of the campaign, pharmacy professionals will have the opportunity to reflect on the reasons that patient safety incidents occur, completing an e-challenge (written in conjunction with Pharmacist Support) to test their knowledge, as well as sharing learning experiences with colleagues.

Working with colleagues and using the risk management guide, pharmacy professionals are asked, in the third week of the campaign, to perform a risk assessment on a process and outline a strategy to manage any associated risks.

Week four challenges campaign registrants to find out from friends and relatives who aren’t healthcare professionals what they know about the role of pharmacy professionals, and how they would feel encouraged to discuss their health and medicines with pharmacy professionals. Week five then focuses on patient safety incident reporting, and how to use this reporting to positively influence practice.

Make a pledge

The final week of the campaign challenges people to make a change, reflecting on how the patient safety incident central to the campaign could have been avoided and how the quality of the service that the healthcare team provides can be improved. The final challenge is to make a pledge to put positive changes into action.

Completion of all six challenges earns a virtual CPPE badge, as well as a downloadable poster, which can be displayed to show a commitment to patient safety.

Throughout the campaign the hashtag #CPPEPS will be used on social media, and participants will be encouraged to share experiences and see what others have been doing during the course.

More information here.