Improving Paediatric Prescribing Through Use Of An Electronic Prescribing System

Paediatric prescriptions are almost 50% more likely to contain an error than adult orders. The risk of prescription error is further increased when prescribing for malignant disease. In April 2012, the National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service (NCRAS) launched the world’s first national Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy (SACT) database. Since 2014 it has been mandatory for all NHS England specialist trusts to send monthly submissions to SACT, regarding the treatment of malignant disease in secondary care. In 2017 Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital (RMCH) introduced ChemoCare – an electronic prescribing system for paediatric chemotherapy – in order to minimise prescription errors and more easily communicate with SACT. Prescription error rates reduced from 34.4% to 11.4% using ChemoCare.