Safety recommendation
It is recommended that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society supports its members in identifying the potential risk of prescribing propranolol to patients in at-risk groups.
Response:
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) is keen to continue supporting patient safety as well as the profession by raising awareness of new and under-recognised risks of medicines.
Propranolol is widely used, and pharmacists are ideally placed to provide advice when prescribing and supplying medicines. The RPS publishes pharmacy guides to support professional practice, as well as pharmacy alerts to share information with pharmacists and will look to support raising awareness of the potential risks through these avenues.
Following the publication of the HSIB report in February the RPS has raised awareness of this with members through its website as a “support alert”.
The RPS will continue to support this patient safety initiative through intermittent interventions when the opportunity arises, such as if an inter-related issue or topic is prominent or if we were to run a wider patient safety conference in the future. Currently RPS conference plans are being revised following the impact of COVID-19.
The RPS is also supporting the wider dissemination of clinical information linked to the risks of propranolol through its publication, the British National Formulary.
Response received on 6 July 2020.