The MHRA has launched a new three-year Strategy for Improving Safety Communications.
The strategy sets out its aims to transform the way it provides information about the risks and safety of medicines, medical devices and healthcare products in the UK to support effective implementation of new safety measures.
The new strategy is underpinned by responses to the MHRA’s recent consultation with healthcare professionals and healthcare organisations, and aims to build on the MHRA’s transformed approach to safety following the 2020 Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review.
Overarching recommendations in the strategy:
- Communicating and the MHRA website: there must be further work to raise the profile of the MHRA with healthcare professionals through increased resources and guidance to support awareness of the MHRA’s role.
- Informing and awareness: there must be increased communication and accessibility of the MHRA’s website to assist busy healthcare professionals and healthcare organisations in extracting, signposting and actioning information to turn it into meaningful actions.
- Engaging and consulting: the MHRA must increase engagement with healthcare professionals, professional bodies and patient safety groups and increase its role in supporting patient safety across the UK.
The strategy concludes that, as products evolve, so must the MHRA’s communications and systems of issuing messages. The MHRA hopes that this 3-year strategy will deliver more coordinated, targeted, and impactful safety communications to healthcare professionals and patients. It plans to run a second healthcare professional consultation at the end of the 3-year period and will publish the findings to measure success of the strategy.
Date: 17 September