Hi Sheila,

Can you advise any routes for good medication training for Senior care staff and Nurses in a care home? Currently they do an annual medication competency which I’m in the process of updating, pharmacy training annually, level 2 Shom and observed/supervised medication rounds. I believe this area of work is significant and although I have had no issues/errors (thankfully) I feel their is limited training around this. Can you advise please?

Thanks, Malcolm

Answered by Sheila Scott

Dear Malcolm,

Thank you for your question.

The first thing we did was to ask our Pharmaceutical Specialist Hasnain Hassam for his comments and this is what he said.

“This is not an easy one to answer….

There are several providers out there and I guess it’s up to the care home to choose one. A good method is for them to ask other care homes who they chose and take any recommendations.

The NICE guidelines for care homes quote the following….

“Care home providers should consider using an ‘accredited learning’ provider so that care home staff who are responsible for managing and administering medicines can be assessed by an external assessor.”

I would suggest that you begin by speaking to your own pharmacist. Some large pharmacy groups have comprehensive and excellent training materials and will also deliver the training. If this is not available through your pharmacist then ask your pharmacist if he could recommend to you an accredited trainer.

If you do an internet search by entering accredited medication training you will discover many different kinds of accredited training for care homes. You need to have confidence that the training is accredited and where medication is concerned the training is normally accredited by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (see their website at RPS Accreditation and Endorsement).

I do hope that this helpful. Do come back to me if we can help further.

Best wishes.

Sheila