The British Medical Association (BMA) has called for practical guidance to help doctors with new regulations on preventing sharps injuries in the NHS.
This call comes in response to a consultation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) relating to regulations being introduced to meet the EU directive on needle injuries. The BMA is concerned at the HSE’s suggestion of poor practice in the use of needles and says that the majority of injections used by GPs come from manufacturers with preformed needles. The BMA GPs committee response says the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency would need to be involved and to work with manufacturers to improve safety. It also highlights the regulation suggesting that healthcare professionals review all of their procedures prior to implementation of the guidelines in May 2013, and then regularly train staff in them thereafter. The BMA said: “Both of these have associated staff-time costs when workloads are already increasing across the sector, and when healthcare professionals have already undertaken significant work to reduce sharps injuries in the workplace.”
