Hospitals ward stock

The ward pharmacist will annotate the Pharmacy box on the chart with information to help the nursing staff to locate the medication. This will include annotating whether the item is a ward stock item (see Section 4.2.1), an item that the patient has brought into the hospital (which is suitable for use during their stay) (see Section 4.2.2) or an item that has been specifically ordered by the ward pharmacist for administration to the patient during their stay (see Section 4.2.1) according to the directions of the pre-scriber. 

Before these schemes were introduced, patients were asked to bring any medication they were taking into hospital so that doctors could gather an accurate patient medication history upon admission. This information was transferred to the patient s in-patient chart and subsequent administration of the medication in the hospital took place either via ward stock or patient-specific in-patient orders (see Section 4.2.1). Upon discharge, patients were given a standard 14-day supply of medication via a TTO. In many cases, the patient s original medication was not returned to them and was just discarded. 

Eontan J E, Maneglier V, Nguyen V X, Loirat C, Brion E (2003). Medication errors in hospitals computerized unit dose drug dispensing system versus ward stock distribution system. Pharmacy World and Science 25 112-117. 

Reconstitution of parenterals is commonly performed on hospital wards by physicians or nurses. The risk of erroneous preparatimi and microbiological contamination during handling, can be reduced if the hospital pharmacy performs recOTistitution under specific precautions (see also Sect. 31.3 Aseptic handling). These reconstituted medicines are supplied to the wards either labelled for individual patients or as a batch as ward stock. Common products that are reconstituted in the pharmacy instead of on the wards (see also Sect. 31.3.2) ... 

Especially on a hospital ward it may be quite normal for injection solutions to be held as stock. This brings the risk that a request for the nurse to administer is misinterpreted, and the injection solution is administered parenterally in error. For that reason the oral use of injection solutions in hospital wards is in general not recommended, although in paediatrics it is often unavoidable. 

Hospital pharmacy is a discipline in permanent transition. In Fig. 1, activities conducted by hospital pharmacists as well as the number of hospital pharmacists in Spain from 1955 are presented. Originally, hospital pharmacists were responsible for management and delivery of stocks of drugs to the wards. Since then the role of the pharmacist has evolved to include a more rational dispensing system (unit-dose delivery) and clinical activities and pharmaceutical care. 

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