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Pharmacy systems could issue yellow card reports direct

Community pharmacists could soon be able to report adverse drug reactions electronically via their own computers.

Discussions are under way between the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and two companies, First DataBank and Cegedim, which both have software that would enable yellow card reporting.

Mick Foy, group manager of the pharmacovigilance signal management group, told PJ Online that First Databank’s Multilex and Cegedim Rx’s Pharmacy Manager are used in a number of pharmacy systems and could incorporate a yellow card reporting feature that would link directly with the MHRA database. "Between the two, most of the community pharmacy systems will be covered," he said.

Mr Foy said that discussions with the two companies were in progress but could not give a date when a final system would be ready.

A similar scheme for GPs has just been launched. This was delayed by five months while further improvements were made.

A pilot project involving medicines information pharmacists at five UK hospitals is also taking place. Following evaluation of the pilot, which uses software that integrates MiDatabank reports with the yellow card scheme, a national roll-out is expected in spring 2011.