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Drug therapy
Initiating Self-Administration of Medicines for inpatients with cystic fibrosis
  1. Ian M Balfour-Lynn1,
  2. Khola Khan2,
  3. Nimla Pentayya3,
  4. Clare Pheasant3,
  5. Sian Bentley2,
  6. Sukeshi Makhecha2
  1. 1 Department of Paediatric Respiratory Medicine, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK
  2. 2 Pharmacy, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK
  3. 3 Nursing, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Ian M Balfour-Lynn, Department of Paediatric Respiratory Medicine, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, SW3 6NP, UK; i.balfourlynn{at}ic.ac.uk

Abstract

Introduction Children with cystic fibrosis (CF) take a multitude of therapies at home. Self-Administration of Medicines (SAM) is a scheme whereby the parent/carer and/or older child keep control of their own medicines in hospital. We initiated a scheme and assessed drug errors, cost implications, and parent and nurse satisfaction.

Methods Following a pilot stage, the SAM protocol was initiated and amended as necessary. Drug errors were analysed from the Datix hospital electronic reporting system. Cost analysis of use of the patents own drugs was carried out. Questionnaires were given to parents and nursing staff.

Results In the initial 10 months, 97 children had 159 admissions, and 60% were deemed suitable for SAM. Drug errors still occurred—33 in 5 years. Cost savings for the hospital over 1 year were £20 022 for 123 admissions. Patient/parent satisfaction was high, and all wished to partake in SAM for further admissions.

Conclusions The scheme was a success although it took 3 years to bring to fruition. Drug errors still occurred but we were able to amend the protocol appropriately to react to these. Cost savings are an incidental benefit from use of patient’s own medication. The SAM scheme is applicable to all children with chronic disease on long term medications when they are in hospital.

  • cystic fibrosis
  • respiratory
  • therapeutics

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2019-318368

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    Footnotes

    • SB and SM are joint last authors.

    • Contributors All authors contributed to data gathering and writing the paper. Please note that SB and SM are joint last authors.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Ethics approval Data were collected as part of a service evaluation so ethics approval was deemed not to be required.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data availability statement Data sharing not applicable as no datasets generated and/or analysed for this study. All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.