UK efforts to improve patient safety through better prescribing

Friday 13 Feb 2015: Important roles of Clinical Pharmacologists include contributing to effectiveness and safety of healthcare through education and training about medicines, and assessment of prescribing skills.

A commentary on ‘Prescribing safety: ensuring that new graduates are prepared’ has today been published in the Lancet by authors from EACPT national member, the British Pharmacological Society.

The commentary describes recent efforts in the UK to minimise prescribing errors in modern healthcare, centred on development and validation over the past 5 years of a national Prescribing Safety Assessment by the British Pharmacological Society in partnership with the UK Medical Schools Council.

These efforts illustrate internationally relevant ways to improve patient safety and the outcomes of treatment with medicines.

See the Lancet to read the Commentary which is available free of charge.

Update on 28-31 August 2013 EACPT Congress in Geneva

-->

The abstract deadline for the next biennial EACPT Congress is only 6 weeks away: 8th April 2013.
See the EACPT Congress blog for summaries on many of the symposia to be held during the Congress: from new therapeutic biomarkers, to new biomarker and treatment targets (cancer, eye disease, predictive pharmacogenetics, inborn errors of metabolism, therapeutic drug monitoring ...), and how to improve safety in prescribing ...

The Congress will be held at the International Congress Centre of Geneva from 28 to 31 August 2013. 

-->
Over 900 participants are expected to attend including health professionals, scientists, policy makers, biotechnology and pharmaceutical professionals and others with an interest in basic and clinical pharmacology, pharmacotherapy, drug discovery and development, regulatory affairs and related areas.

Abstract submission

Registration

2013 EACPT Geneva Congress website.

Strategy development for the EACPT

EC members from UK, Sweden, Croatia and Italy

The European Association for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics provides expert advice for European policy makers and medicines agencies, and organises congresses and workshops providing key information on the latest advances in research, education and policy on drug development and on the efficacy and safety of new and established medicines and their management. The EACPT  provides important additional support for its members, including representation and advocacy, training, and other aspects of development of the specialty.

EC members from France, Holland, Denmark, Finland and Germany

The international landscape for learned medical societies is evolving rapidly as a result of several key factors, including the impact of advances in molecular technology on drug discovery and development, changes in populations demographics, emergence of new therapeutic challenges,  the current global economic climate, and the effects of new e-technologies on ways of working and interacting for health and industry professionals, researchers and other interested in clinical sciences.

EC members from Holland, Spain, Germany & Hungary

The EACPT Executive Committee is in the process of conducting one of its regular strategy reviews, including evaluation of opportunities for the Assocation and its communities arising from the above developments. Results and actions arising from the strategy review will be discussed at the next biennial EACPT Congress to be held in Geneva 28-31 August 2013.

More on the EACPT Geneva 2013 Congress.

Update from Geneva

The latest meeting of the EACPT Executive has just finished in Geneva in advance of the next major EACPT biennial congress, which is to be held in this lakeside Swiss city in the summer of 2013.

Here are three important updates about the EACPT's scientific and educational programmes:

The next EACPT summer school will be held on 23rd to 25th August 2012 in Amsterdam, with an excellent range of topics for delegates interested in education in key principles relevant to clinical pharmacology. See the website for further information.

At the next European Pharmacology Congress in Granada  July 17th - 20th, 2012,  EACPT Vice-President Professor Tabassome Simon from Paris will give the keynote EACPT lecture on the application of pharmacogenetic testing to cardiovascular therapeutics.

Cathedral and Lake Geneva fountain (jet d'eau)

The EACPT is developing the programme for its next biennial congress, to be held in beautiful Geneva, 28th - 31st August in 2013. Key themes at the congress will range from bedside pharmacology for special patient groups to pharmacology & toxicology, and pharmacology and society. Specific topics will include advances in personalised diagnostics to improve the safety and effectiveness of medicines, updates on new biological approaches to ocular disease, therapeutics of cardiovascular, cancer and inflammatory disease, clinical trial design and regulation, and drug safety and toxicology.