Factors affecting the patient journey and patient care when receiving an unlicensed medicine: A systematic review.

Background: Unlicensed medicines are used across the UK to treat an individual's clinical needs when there are no appropriate licensed alternatives. Patients, carers and parents have reported facing challenges with unlicensed medicines at the points of transfer of care between settings, a key time when medication errors may occur. There is little known about the patient journey as a whole, or the factors affecting patient care when receiving an unlicensed medicine.

Unlicensed "Special" Medicines: Understanding the Community Pharmacist Perspective.

Objective: Community pharmacy staff are responsible for obtaining and supplying unlicensed "special" medicines to patients in primary care. Less well-defined parameters for safe and effective use of unlicensed compared to licensed medicines, along with issues around maintaining consistency between care settings or among manufacturers, have been associated with increased risks. This study aimed to explore the views and experiences of community pharmacy staff on accessing and supplying unlicensed "special" medicines to patients in Wales and the perceived impact of challenges faced on patient care.

Displaying medication costs on dispensing labels as a strategy to reduce wastage: views of the Welsh general public.

Introduction: In 2015, the UK health secretary made public an intention to include the value of medicines costing over £20 on dispensing labels as an attempt to reduce wastage attributable to patient behavior. However, there is a lack of evidence investigating the potential effect or feasibility of this proposal, and concerns have been raised that it may introduce new problems in vulnerable groups. This pilot study aimed to gather views of the Welsh general public on this subject.

What constitutes a high quality discharge summary? A comparison between the views of secondary and primary care doctors.

Objective: This study aimed to identify any differences in opinion between UK hospital junior doctors and community General Practitioners (GPs) with respect to the ideal content and characteristics of discharge summaries, and to explore junior doctors' training for and awareness of post-discharge requirements of GPs.

Methods: A piloted anonymous survey was posted to 74 junior doctors at a UK general hospital and 153 local GPs. Doctors were asked to rank discharge summary key content and characteristics in order of importance.