Drug Alerts & Recalls
Drug Alerts & Recalls
What Are Drug Alerts & Recalls?
How Will This Help My Practice?
Enhances patient safety and safeguarding
Identifying which patients may be at risk and providing appropriate care.
Managing practice communications
If required, our pharmacists distribute recall letters and messages.
Significantly reduces medication risks
From any errors, unsafe drug continuation, and delayed responses.
Meets CQC compliance expectations
Providing full coding, robust governance & evidence of medicine safety.
Utilises practice-approved risk stratification systems
Including Eclipse Live, Ardens, and SystmOne
Issuing appropriate medication changes
As aligned with MHRA and ICB guidance.
“The team is consistently reliable. Phones are always answered and emails come back the same day. It’s made a real difference to how we run our medication reviews.”
“Fast email replies and always there when we need clinical input. The pharmacists fit straight into the team and just get on with the work.”
“Excellent service from start to finish. Easy to reach, quick to reply, and they clearly know NHS workflows inside out. We couldn’t recommend the team more highly.”
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Frequently Asked Questions
How are CAS and MHRA drug alerts monitored?
Our team of virtual pharmacists complete the monitoring of MHRS and CAS alerts routinely. These frequent checks involve the review of:
- The active substance or batch affected
- Required clinical actions
- Supply issues or product switches
- Timeframes for compliance
- Any required monitoring or appropriate follow-up
- Risks to vulnerable or high-risk patients
All outcomes from this monitoring are documented and auditable.
How do your pharmacists use Eclipse Live to support MHRA drug alerts?
We utilise the Eclipse Live service to support medication safety. This software carefully identifies patients at increased risk of medicine-related harm as a result of drug alerts. This enables targeted pharmacist reviews and timely action to reduce avoidable risk.
Following MHRA drug alerts and recalls, our remote pharmacists will use Eclipse Live within GP clinical systems to automatically filter the patient list down to the specific individuals at risk based on that alert. They will then review those patient notes and take action.
This is a much simpler and quicker alternative to manually filtering through patient lists, ensuring that the drug alert is swiftly and efficiently actioned to protect patient safety.
What actions are taken when patients are identified as affected from these drug alerts?
Actions that our pharmacists take differ depending on the drug alert’s severity and impact.
Patient monitoring and contact, as well as the code and documentation of all interventions, is set up by our pharmacists. In some instances, our fully trained pharmacists will provide urgent clinical reviews of affected patients. Patients may be advised to stop taking the affected medication, or switch to a safer alternative.
How do you identify which patients are affected?
Our solution integrates with patient-approved risk management or safety systems, which our pharmacists use to run searches of affected patients.
Our team utilises the likes of Ardens’ templates and structured searches, EMIS and SystmOne advanced reporting, ICB-provided medicines safety tools, as well as manual cross-checks for medicines that are not covered by any structured templates.
Our team of pharmacists also utilise Eclipse Live within the likes of EMIS to easily filter through patient lists and automatically identify those at increased risk of medicine-related harm.
How do you ensure these actions meet CQC expectations?
When drug alerts and recalls are issued, our pharmacists accurately and efficiently record, action, evidence, audit, monitor and report back to the practice. This appropriately meets CQC’s requirements for safe systems, robust governance, and evidence of proactive medicines risk management.
Can you handle batch recalls and safety-critical switches?
Yes, our pharmacists manage both of these aspects appropriately – ensuring formulation accuracy, dose equivalence, and alignment with local formularies.
