November has been a month of activity here at the Yellow Card Centre West Midlands!
Modern Medicine meets Dangerous Drugs – Study day
The month kicked off with our annual study day; Modern Medicine meets dangerous drugs on 6th November 2018. Over 60 delegates took part in discussions on a range of topics including acute medicines, illicit drugs, pharmacogenomics and deprescribing. Our inclusion of patient experience and the importance of keeping the patient at the centre of care moved everyone. Here’s a snippet of some of the feedback:
“Excellent speakers and topics – lots to take back to the Trust and MSO”
“Dr Bradberry’s session was most relevant with current issues of street drugs and the increase in their use/availability. Loved the patient story at the end!”
“Very informative about the cannabinoids. empowering patients – brilliant!”
“Very informative and thought provoking topics”
“It was very impactful to hear patients story from their side”
ISoP 2018
Next the team were off to Geneva, Switzerland to enjoy the sights and present at the 18th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Pharmacogivilance!
The theme of this year’s conference was Pharmacovigilance without borders. The YCCWM team presented a number of posters on topics from patient involvement in Pharmacovigilance to preventing future deaths from medicines.
Professor Robin E. Ferner and Dr Jeffrey K Aronson chaired a session on Pharmacovigilance of Medical Devices.
ADR Awareness Week 2018
After enjoying the beautiful mountain views, it was back to the office to take part in the international Adverse Drug Reactions Awareness Week. A social media campaign part of an awareness week involving 32 medicines regulators in the EU, Latin America, Australasia and the Middle East! This years’ focus was medicine safety in infants and children, and during pregnancy, including when breastfeeding. The hashtag was #medsafetyweek
Here’s a selection of tweets from the campaign:
“There has been a big growth in patient reporting over the last few years #medsafetyweek #patientsafety #reportsideeffects We can all play a part in ensuring safer use of medicines”
Uppsala Monitoring Centre tweeted: 
Ecuador is just one of four countries helping us raise awareness of #medicinesafety in the Spanish-speaking world. These are our other ambassadors in Latin America! 
Colombia @invimacolombia 
El Salvador @MedicamentosSV 
Mexico @COFEPRIS #MedSafetyWeek
#KnowCheckAsk: If you are a health professional 
, before you give medication 
, check that you have the right medicine for the right patient http://bit.ly/KnowCheckAsk #MedSafetyWeek
