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Administration of Medication Event: Guidelines for PAs

January 25, 2018

 

Personal Assistants may often be supporting people to take or manage their medication. This can be from the beginning of a support arrangement or be something that comes up after a period of ill health.

This event is an opportunity to discuss the idea of creating Guidelines that would support PAs and their employers regarding the training and support PAs need to enable them to support people to take their medication.

The Workshop is being held at:

Venue: Station Hotel, 1, Leonard Street, Perth PH2 8HE

Date: Wednesday 7th March from 10am to 2pm

Medication concerns:

WEA Scotland/Personal Assistants Network Scotland, SDS Forth Valley and Emcare, through their partnership work in providing training support and development to Personal Assistants, have had several concerns raised regarding the activities some PAs have been asked to do relating to medications, medical and quasi medical interventions.

Examples:

In some cases this results in PAs

  • Administering medicines family members have dispensed and have carried out medical activities with only the family member giving direction.
  • PA’s being asked to administer medication through needles without training

This has resulted in a number of concerns being raised with WEA and SDS Forth Valley.

What’s missing?

On initial investigation, there currently appears to be a lack of direction regarding what a PA should and should not be carrying out with regards to administration of medications.  This lack of guidelines could prove to be detrimental to PAs in the event of an accident or incident happening and may leave them open to litigation, as well as detrimental to the person receiving the medication if this is not administered correctly.

Proposal

At the workshop on 7th March, we hope to determine

  • What, if any, guidelines, protocols or procedures are currently in place?
  • Are guidelines needed for PAs?
  • What would the impact of not having guidelines be for PAs and employers?
  • What can be implemented to assist PA’s and Employers in the safe Administration of Medication?

The workshop will be in the format of facilitated group sessions led by representatives from Scottish Government, SDSS, SSSC, Social Work Scotland, SDS Forth Valley and WEA/PA Network therefore will be very participative, we encourage active feedback, discussion and input from all.  Following the workshop, information will be collated and next steps agreed with regards to submitting proposal for Guidelines to be produced.

Spaces on the workshop are limited therefore please register on Eventbrite here.