Pharmacists can cut care home medication errors by 91 per cent if given full responsibility for medicines management, a trial scheme has found.

The four-month trial, by Midhurst Pharmacy in London, introduced an intensive pharmacist-led pharmaceutical intervention programme at a 69-bed higher-dependence care home.

Internal medicines errors such as changes in dose, medication or out of date records were reduced from 69 at baseline to only six during the trial period.

The trial follows an alert from the Department of Health in January, warning that older people in care homes were exposed to a higher rate of medication errors than those in the community.