Accuracy of Allergies Listed on Emergency Care Summaries

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  An Investigation into the Accuracy of Allergies Listed on Emergency Care Summaries of Patients with Recorded Allergies Admitted to Surgical Wards Covered by Clinical Pharmacists at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

• IRAS ID

  261146

• Contact name

  Sarah O'Beirne

• Contact email

  sarah.o'beirne@nhs.net

• Sponsor organisation

  NHS Grampian

• Duration of Study in the UK

  0 years, 0 months, 26 days

• Research summary

  The Scottish Government defined medicines reconciliation as the process of ensuring that the medications a patient is taking, both prescribed and purchased, is the same as the list of medication a patient’s healthcare professional has during the patient’s stay in hospital. This includes confirmation of allergies. The Emergency Care Summary is an electronic list of a patient’s medication and allergies as recorded by the patient’s GP practice, and is available to healthcare professionals in hospitals in Scotland in read-only format. The government puts the Emergency Care Summary (ECS) at the centre of the medicines reconciliation process and recommends that the information on the ECS is subsequently clarified by the admitting clinical team or pharmacy team using a minimum of two other sources (e.g. patient, carer, clinic letters, etc). As part of the process, a patient’s medication allergies are confirmed.

  Many studies have looked at the accuracy of documented allergy status; problems encountered while trying to confirm the correct allergy status, and the potential impact this may have on treatment choice. However, there is a lack of data relating to the accuracy of allergy data on the ECS. This is important, as inadequate ECS allergy information may mean that preferred first line treatments are avoided. For example, if a patient experienced diarrhoea while taking coamoxiclav and this was recorded as an allergy with no description of the reaction, it may be incorrectly assumed that the patient is allergic to penicillins, thus ruling out the entire class as a treatment option. This study aims to review the accuracy of allergies documented on the ECS of patients admitted to surgical wards at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

• REC name

  London - Westminster Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  19/LO/0372

• Date of REC Opinion

  22 Mar 2019

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion