The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), the Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK (APTUK) and the Pharmacy Forum of Northern Ireland have developed new professional standards on reporting, sharing, learning, acting on and reviewing incidents in pharmacy.

Aimed at pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and the wider pharmacy team, the professional standards set out good practice and good systems for supporting a culture of patient safety by reporting and learning from incidents and errors. 

The standards consist of the following six steps:

• Standard one: Be open and honest when things go wrong
• Standard two: Report patient safety incidents to the appropriate local or national reporting programme
• Standard three: Investigate and learn from all incidents, including those that cause harm and those that are ‘no harm’ or ‘near miss’
• Standard four: Share what you have learnt to make local or national systems of care safer
• Standard five: Take action to change practice or improve local or national systems of care
• Standard six: Review changes to practice.