SAFE AND SECURE HANDLING OF MEDICINES
Section
28:
Transfer of patients and their medicines within and between hospitals
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When
patients are transferred between wards in the hospital or between
hospitals, the continuity of medicine supply must be ensured. Since
stock drug lists do vary, the receiving ward must be contacted by
nursing staff of the transferring ward and the patients medicines
requirements reviewed. This must be done sufficiently in advance to
enable suitable arrangements to be made to allow continuity of treatment
on transfer.
All of the patients own medicines and those dispensed during the
patient's stay must be transferred with the patient at all times.
Should the patient require inter/intra-hospital transfer, the Registered Nurse/Midwife responsible for their care will determine the need for a nurse escort. At this time they should assess if a patient has the capacity to take responsibility for their own medicines during transfer, acknowledging the impact of an acute clinical condition or any cognitive impairment. If the Registered Nurse/Midwife deems that the patient cannot take responsibility for their medicines, the medication must be securely transported with the escort using an envopak or other suitable means, as described in Section 10.4. and not given to the patient to transport. The Nurse in Charge is responsible for the safe transfer of medicines and should ensure that there are processes in place to support effective assessment and decision making in relation to both a patient’s need for escort and their ability to take responsibility for medicines during transfer. This process is particularly important when transferring a patient to an outlying hospital where supply of medications after hours is more difficult and "unusual" medicines take longer to obtain. The current Medicine Prescription Sheet THB (MR) 024SS/LS/DS shall accompany the patient on transfer to another ward/department within NHS Tayside or whenever a procedure is to be carried out in another department which may involve the use of medicine or there is need for information on the current therapy. This prescription chart must be authorised for use by the receiving medical staff (if they are a different medical team) within 48hours of transfer, otherwise a new prescription record must be written. Where the medicine sheet cannot accompany the patient on transfer, the use of the Discharge Notification and Prescription Forms THB (MR) 26 or paediatric /neonatal equivalent must be used as a combined Discharge Notification and Prescription Form, completion of the diagnosis/discharge section being at the discretion of the clinician.
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