3. Underpinning Knowledge - Legislation and Professional Issues

A minimum of two people should be involved in the dispensing process. Ideally, the person undertaking the accuracy check should not be involved in the assembly process, to reduce the potential risk to patient safety and likelihood of errors.

Self-checking occurs when the same individual is responsible for the dispensing and the final accuracy checking process. In exceptional circumstances, pharmacists can find themselves in situations where self-checking may be necessary. You should use your professional judgement to assess if self-checking is necessary. Self-checking should not be the normal practice and only undertaken as a last resort. If self-checking is deemed necessary, consider the following points before self-checking to limit errors occurring: