the day: dizzy

(1) There was no clear evidence (such as a document signed by Mr MICHAEL or a family member) detailing medication to which helthey waslwere aware he was allergic This led to there conflicting evidence between his having (according to his son) highlighted his penicillin and Ibuprofen allergies to hospital staff and the information for this admission recorded by hospital staff (which did not include penicillin but did include Ibuprofen): (2) The Root Cause Analysis conducted by the hospital into this death identified that Mr MICHAEL had three sets of hospital notes, in one of which there was a solitary to suggest that at a past medical attendance & reaction to Augmentin was noted. That information does not appear to have been translated in any subsequent entries nor to have been passed to his GP (3)The importance of known or suspected allergies that have been recorded on previous contacts with a hospital being readily available to the hospital's staff when next treating that patient cannot be over-emphasised_ There was evidence that the RCA team have sought learning from this event and how to record accurately and continuously highlight all known allergies or reported allergies, and how that information can be kept and made available on every patient at presentation. However; the evidence also showed that the medical reporting and computer systems for patient tracking do not currently allow this facility in such a way, although the relevant Trust teams are investigating how this data recording can be made more accurate_ (4) Although the Trust has indicated that electronic prescribing should now be prioritised (which it considers could potentially have flagged up the historic allergy documentation) , the RCA gave no indication that this would be compulsory for the future, or that any steps were being taken to encourage or make compulsory the checking of earlier paper records for information contained therein on allergies_