Medication errors: what I learned as a newly registered nurse

Advice on avoiding medication errors, nurses’ duty of candour when a mistake is made and having the courage to raise concerns to ensure patient safety

Making a medication error is something all nurses dread, so when this happened to me in my first few weeks as a registered nurse, I was devastated.

The lead nurse had asked me to come to their office. I had no idea what they wanted to talk to me about, but as I had not been on the ward for long, I thought it might be to check how I was settling in.

Confronted with an error

When instead they said ‘You’ve made a medication error’, I felt as if the rug had