Updated Incident Reporting Approved Particulars

UPDATE 25/07/2024 – The Incident Reporting Approved Particulars have now been published and are available on NHS England’s website.

The Incident Reporting Approved Particulars were due to be updated on NHS England’s website this week, but we understand that this has now been delayed until the end of July. This is a change to the timing announced in last week’s Primary Care Bulletin.

The clinical governance requirements of the community pharmacy contractual framework (CPCF) include an approved incident reporting system, together with arrangements for analysing and responding to critical incidents. The approved incident reporting system is set out in this Approved Particulars.

Broadly, the updated Incident Reporting Approved Particulars will confirm existing expectations and practice, including that:

• Pharmacies must have a patient safety incident log for all incidents, which captures the information set out in the Approved Particulars.
• Pharmacies must report to the Learn from Patient Safety Events Service (LFPSE) relevant incidents (but not near misses) and when reporting use the defined levels of physical and psychological harm grades in LFPSE.
• Pharmacies must notify a referring external organisation of the incident with appropriate details, where the incident is related to a referral from that organisation,
• Only relevant staff involved in providing NHS services should be involved in the analyses of patient safety incidents.
• The pharmacy owner must participate in any reasonable activities associated with patient safety incidents including engaging in review and root cause analysis where requested to do so by the relevant service commissioner, or other referring organisation where the incident is related to a referral from them.
• Pharmacies may report incidents anonymously if, for example, the error could constitute a criminal offence, or as part of staff ‘whistleblowing’ in relation to unsafe dispensing practices.