What is it about?
One of the most fundamental concepts in medicine is that our ability to prescribe the correct medication is based upon our ability to make the correct diagnosis first. However, the relationship between illness, time and clinical assessment often means that the initial diagnosis may either be uncertain or incorrect. In addition, a patient may experience a serious complication of what is normally a minor illness. The dynamic and unpredictable nature of illness needs to be managed safely through the provision of safety-netting advice. However, it is essential that the medical content of that advice covers the specific medical criteria that would require a patient to seek a medical re-assessment of their symptoms and of their diagnosis. This article describes a mnemonic to help facilitate the development of symptom-based, patient safety-focused, safety-netting advice.
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Why is it important?
Safety-netting is one of the most important ways of reducing the risk of serious harm caused by diagnostic uncertainty, errors in diagnosis and from the unpredictable nature of illness
Perspectives
I have written previously about the importance of developing a patient safety-focused approach to the decision as to whether it is medically appropriate to send the patient with safety-netting advice, rather than to arrange a medical review of the patient and also about the need to ensure that safety-netting advice is patient-centred. This article provides a mnemonic-based system that focuses on bringing a symptom-based, patient safety-focused approach to the medical content of safety-netting advice.
Dr Paul Philip Silverston
Anglia Ruskin University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: SAFER: A mnemonic to improve safety-netting advice in prescribing practice, Journal of Prescribing Practice, November 2019, Mark Allen Group,
DOI: 10.12968/jprp.2019.1.11.552.
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