Time trends of potentially drug related hospital admissions

One in fifteen hospital admissions are caused by side effects of prescribed medicines, and it is estimated that more than half of these may be preventable. In the UK, bleeding is the commonest side effect causing a preventable emergency admission, but we don’t know that much about how admissions with bleeding caused by medicines have changed over time. NHS data is now much better recorded electronically, meaning that it is now much easier to do this kind of analysis. This project will examine changes over the last 10 years in rates of admissions for medicines associated bleeding in NHS Tayside, and whether a large-scale prescribing safety intervention implemented in NHS Tayside had any impact on admissions with bleeding. The project will help NHS health boards develop ways of monitoring harm caused by medicines.