Rowan Hillson Insulin Safety Award 'best in class' insulin prescription chart competition

Abstract

The National Diabetes Inpatient Audit for 2013 described insulin-related prescription errors in over 21% of patients each year from the beginning of data collection in 2010. Error rates have fallen year on year but remain unacceptably high, with significant variation between hospitals. Many of these issues were related to insulin prescribing. In 2014, the Joint British Diabetes Societies for Inpatient Care (JBDS) organised a competition for the 'best in class' current insulin prescription chart from hospitals in the UK. The aim was to identify safe and effective insulin charts, and make them available to the other clinical teams. A total of 41 Trusts submitted their insulin prescription charts, which were considered by an expert panel of independent judges against predefined criteria based on guidelines on the safe prescription of insulin from the UK National Patient Safety Agency. The charts from Nottingham University Hospitals won this competition, with East Sussex Healthcare, Worcestershire Royal Hospital and Western Sussex Hospitals as runners up. The competition identified areas of particular strength in the winning charts, which are available online (see Box 1). This article describes the background to the competition, with an account of the winning entry. The judging process highlighted a number of valuable mechanisms for improving insulin prescribing in UK hospitals.