The amount of errors made in prescribing drugs could be reduced by inviting pharmacists into GP practices to conduct regular medicine reviews, according to research.

The IT-based intervention scheme was found to be cheap and easy to put in place and cost just £75 for each error avoided after six months, the report published online by The Lancet said.

People in pharmacist jobs were invited to analyse prescribing errors at GP practices in the pharmacist-led, information technology-based intervention (Pincer). They then agreed action plans and provided simple feedback on patient records.

Professor Tony Avery from the Division of Primary Care at the University of Nottingham`s Medical School led the study. The trial involved 72 general practices in the UK with a combined patient list of 480,942.

The study`s authors said: "Pincer offers an effective method for reducing a range of medication errors in general practice. An essential prerequisite is the use of electronic health records, which effectively reduces errors.

"The intervention that we have developed will be suitable for implementation in the increasing number of countries where clinical records are now computerised and where the roles of pharmacists to monitor proactively for clinically important medication errors can be extended"

Copyright Press Association 2012