The course is freely available to anyone in the veterinary profession.
A free online course has been launched to help veterinary teams improve their medication safety in practice.
The course, Managing Veterinary Medicines: Staying legal and promoting safety, has been jointly launched by RCVS Knowledge and the Veterinary Medicines Directorate to provide knowledge on the safe and responsible use of veterinary medicines and medicine regulations.
Delivering more than six hours of CPD, course users can expect to learn how to put systems in place that will reduce errors, improve patient outcomes and improve practice systems.
RCVS Knowledge executive director, Chris Gush, said: “In England alone, more than 1,700 people die yearly because of medication errors. While we don't know the true figures in veterinary medicine, we do know that 30 per cent of errors reported to the VDS's VetSafe system are due to medication errors.
“That's why we think it's vital to have good robust systems in place in the practice dispensary and to use QI tools like guidelines, protocols, and checklists. We are pleased to have worked alongside the VMD to produce this fantastic course that will help veterinary teams improve their medication safety and ultimately save lives.”
The course will be delivered through podcasts, webinars and articles, and will help practices prepare for a VMD inspection or an RCVS Practice Standards Scheme assessment.
CEO of the VMD, Abi Seager added: “Managing Veterinary Medicines will help teams comply with legislation as well as keep patients, team members and clients safe when prescribing and dispensing medicine. Both RCVS Knowledge and the VMD are committed to supporting veterinary teams to use and store medicines correctly to benefit patients, veterinary teams and practices.”
The course is open to everyone in the veterinary profession. For more information and to access the course, visit rcvsknowledge.org
Veterinary practices are being urged to help owners safely dispose of any unused and expired pet medicines - not just antibiotics - during November's Animal Medicines Amnesty. 
