Safety Spotlight: Prescribing and dispensing of low molecular weight heparin

A pregnant mother was seen outside of the maternity service and was prescribed low molecular weight heparin, the prescription did not contain essential information to allow pharmacy checks to be completed. This led to incorrect doses of low molecular weight heparin being dispensed by the pharmacy to a pregnant mother.

To minimise this happening in your service, consider the following:

• When low molecular weight heparin needs to be prescribed, does the electronic or paper prescription chart ask for the patient’s weight, their renal function, indication of treatment, and the length that treatment is needed for?
• Do electronic prescription charts have mandatory fields to make sure that this essential information is provided before the prescription can be generated?
• Does your pharmacy team ask for this essential information to be provided if it is not included on the prescription chart?
• Is your pharmacy checking processes for low molecular weight heparin the same for all patients across the trust?
• Do you carry out audits on weight based dosing of low molecular weight heparin?

This was first published in the Stakeholder Bulletin: Nov 2024 - Edition