STAMP: a continuous improvement approach to improve paediatric prescribing and medication safety.

We describe an ongoing quality improvement project focusing on paediatric prescribing and medication safety for medical, surgical and oncology patients in a district general hospital. The project is called STAMP-Safe Treatment and Administration of Medicine in Paediatrics. The project has been running continuously for 24 months. No one factor has been identified to sustain a reduction in prescribing error rates. However, we have improved the quality and frequency of feedback to prescribers following errors. We believe that this ongoing project is changing the local prescribing culture, and with further Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles we hope to see improvement in prescribing error rates.