Worst reasons for dispensing errors

Dear Mr Dispemser
I'm nor going to spend long in reply becauce I have never ever heard anyone utter any of the reasons you have cited. If indeed these have all been used in your pharmacy I really do think it is time for reflection and direction setting brought tightly under the canopy of patient safety. When an error goes beyond your control what is the said to a patient and how is it handled/followed up? I shudder to think..

I would not say wee when speaking to a patient. Thanks for your comment

I am familiar with many of the excuses quoted above and more!!! One I would add that is often used is that the dispenser did not perform a self check. If a self check was performed many of the above would not happen. Also I would suggest the use of reflection sheets, where an explanation must be given by the dispenser and suggestions of how to avoid this in the future. I expect that any errors were noticed on final check and so the patient was not involved at all.

At the risk of sounding harsh, all errors ocur because the person or persons involved are not focussed on the task in hand. Everything else is just an attempt to "justify" the error. Some of the diversions may be job-related (eg pharmacists being asked a question whilst checking) but even in those circumstances, there needs to be afocus of doing one job at a time - pharmacy is no place for multi-tasking.

Implementing a near miss error log is a good idea, especially including the names of the dispensers who have dispensed the error. This could hopefully reduce the rates of errors by them and they may even apologise next time. Staff dispensing should be responsible for errors made by them, but the pharmacist checking is accountable for it.

I always apologise to the pharmacist when I make an error but I heard the best or worst excuse ever the other day at work......" I have PMT"......

Niall, I'm surprised you have not heard any of this excuses, is your pharmacy in different planet?

Are superintendent pharmacists always in branches? Perhaps not in this case. I have heard most of those reasons/excuses and I've worked in pharmacy for 13 years.

Great post mr dispenser!