The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has launched a new monthly safety bulletin called the ‘MHRA Safety Roundup’, which is the latest step in a three-year Strategy for Improving Safety Communications to make medicines and medical device information clearer and more accessible for healthcare professionals.

This is in response to findings from the MHRA’s consultation on how it communicates safety information with healthcare professionals and organisations, which found that healthcare professionals found it useful to receive information at different frequencies, including monthly summaries, to suit their needs.

The bulletin is to be sent to subscribers and also published online at the end of each month and provides a summary of all the MHRA safety alerts for the past month. This includes drug safety updates (DSU), device safety information (DIS), national patient safety alerts, recalls and medicines notifications, as well as letters sent to healthcare professionals.

It will also contain the latest news within MHRA, highlighting important safety information about medicines, medical devices, and healthcare products that may be of interest to readers.

MHRA safety will make critical safety advice clear and easy to action, using colour and relevant images to better engage healthcare professionals who often need to distribution this information to their patients.

Work continues to improve the MHRA safety communications, and the next focus will be on strengthening engagement with patients and the wider public, including though the use of communications methods that are tailored to their needs.

Healthcare professionals can subscribe to the ‘MHRA Safety Roundup’ here.