Care Home Medication Awareness Training, designed with care workers in mind. This Medication Awareness Training course provides an overview of how to manage residents’ medical needs; how to deliver, store, and dispose of medication, effectively manage doses and the legal responsibilities involved.
CPD Accredited Course Level: INTERMEDIATE
Employers, get unlimited access to all courses for just £5.99 per employee, per month, by subscription.
Contact us to find out more >>
From record-keeping to storing different types of controlled drugs and administering them safely, you don’t need us to tell you that it’s extremely important to follow the correct procedures when it comes to care home medication.
However, what we can do is help you understand them and offer you medication administration training options for your care home.
First of all, medicines should be stored in a way that ensures that only relevant members of staff and patients have access to them, but also that they will be effective once administered. For the latter, it will depend on each individual drug, so you must check the storage requirements specified by the manufacturer.
Centrally stored medicines should only be accessed by trained members of staff. However, if a personal risk assessment deems it safe for certain care home residents to administer selected medicines themselves, those can then be stored in their room. To prevent accidents (such as other residents accessing them), it is much safer to do so with a lockable cupboard or drawer.
As for emergency medicines, it is extremely important that they are stored safely but in a manner that can guarantee quick access when needed.
As soon as a new patient is transferred into your care home, a designated member of staff must retrieve and compile an accurate list of all the medications that they require, as well as needs and preferences.
As detailed in the guide on ‘Managing medicines for adults receiving social care in the community’ compiled by the National Institute for Health & Care Excellence, all their records must be updated on a regular basis. You should also include your residents’ personal preferences and requirements when it comes to taking them, their risk assessments, and how often their medicine support must be reviewed.
As for your medicine policy, it is also important to review it frequently to ensure that it is always up to date with the latest legislation and best practices.
All care home residents must receive adequate medication support, enabling them to never miss their prescribed drugs. This includes:
In the last scenario, your staff should always remember the 6 R’s of administering medications:
Still, the most important matter when it comes to care home medication administration is that only trained members of staff should do it.
In fact, as explained in the above-mentioned NICE guide, they must always “have the necessary knowledge and skills.” While these must be updated regularly and annually, your home care workers should first undergo a thorough medication administration training.
More information on policies and requirements can be found on the Care Quality Commission website.
Training your home care staff members to administer medication correctly and safely does not have to be expensive nor time-consuming.
At Learn 2 Excel we offer three online and distance-learning courses that won’t require you to invest in in-person training nor to rearrange your rotas to have all of your staff members in the same place and at the same time. In fact, they will be able to follow these care home medication courses individually and at their own pace.
Don’t forget that you can now train even more of your care home workers by unlocking bulk discounts on our medication administration training or any other course.
