Patient safety

RCPCH Patient Safety Portal is our dedicated website to all things related to patient safety. Explore patient safety theory, learn about the NHS patient safety syllabus, share ideas for QI and get summaries of the latest alerts and reports.

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Statutory Duty of Candour for Northern Ireland - consultation response

In August 2021, we responded to the Department of Health Northern Ireland's proposal for a statutory Duty of Candour and Being Open Framework. The RCPCH broadly welcomes an organisational Duty of Candour, but we believe that an additional, individual Duty would be cumbersome, duplicative, and dispro...

Quality improvement

Patient safety

Workforce

Resource

Medicine dosing in childhood obesity

UK Medicines Information service (UKMI) in conjunction with the Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacy Group (NPPG) have produced updated guidance on how to dose medication in children who are obese.

Drugs and medicines

Obesity

Patient safety

Resource

Standardising intravenous infusion concentrations for neonates and children in the UK - framework

This framework (updated in November 2024) is developed by Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacy Group (NPPG), with support from RCPCH, Paediatric Critical Care Society (PCCS) and British Association of Perinatal Medicine (BAPM).

Drugs and medicines

Patient safety

Basic page

RCPCH Conference 2025 - Keynote speakers

These keynote talks from this year's event on 26-28 March 2025 explored vital topics, including the global impact of COVID-19 on children's health, patient safety advancements, sustainable paediatric medicines and innovative care models for adolescents.

Continuing professional development

Leadership

Mentoring

Public health

Wellbeing for children and young people

News

Medicine safety alert - ranitidine (withdrawn)

10 February 2021

Ranitidine products (Brand names including Zantac®) were voluntarily withdrawn by manufacturers in October 2019 due to the presence of low levels of an impurity called NDMA. The European Medicines Agency has since confirmed its recommendation to suspend all ranitidine medicines in the EU.

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Antiepileptic drugs: review of safety of use during pregnancy

Following the known harms of valproate in pregnancy, MHRA released a report looking into the safety data for epilepsy medicines during pregnancy.

News

Medicines safety alert - Erythromycin therapy

5 January 2021

Erythromycin in babies and infants has been associated with an increased risk of infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis.

News

Updated guidance on valproate use in women and girls of childbearing years is published

14 December 2020

This guidance, updated in December 2020 and endorsed by RCPCH, has been produced to inform all healthcare professionals of best practice around the use and prescribing of valproate. It supports them to navigate situations that could arise as a result of prescribing valproate to women during childbea...

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Choosing an oral liquid medicine for children - position statement (endorsed)

We are very pleased to announce the publication of this latest position statement produced by the Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacy Group (NPPG) and endorsed by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) regarding how to choose an oral liquid for a child.

Drugs and medicines

Patient safety

News

Medicines safety alert – apraclonidine use in infants below six months of age

17 March 2020

The RCPCH/NPPG Medicines Committee has recently been informed of a severe adverse reaction in a six-month old child with anisocoria who had been administered apraclonidine 1% to help exclude Horner syndrome.