The annual #MedSafetyWeek campaign is taking place from 2 to 8 November 2026 to promote the importance of reporting side effects from medicines and medical device incidents. This year’s theme is ‘Side effects: don’t ignore them, report them!’ to encourage the reporting of side effects and adverse incidents with medicines and medical devices.
Anyone can report suspected side effects to medicines, adverse incidents with medical devices, safety concerns about e-cigarettes/vapes and defective, low-quality or falsified (fake) products to improve patient safety.
Patients can stay informed about their medicines by reading the patient information leaflet or instructions supplied with a product, discuss known side effects with a healthcare professional, and consider whether new or changing symptoms could be linked to the healthcare product.
If you are a patient, you can ask:
- What is this medicine for?
- When and how should I take it?
- How should I store it?
- Can it interact with my other medicines?
- What are the side effects?
Don’t ignore suspected side effects or other safety concerns – report them through the Yellow Card scheme. Yellow Card reporting plays a key role in keeping patients safe and ensures that healthcare products remain effective and safe.
At East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust we also use #MedSafetyWeek to highlight ways that we can ensure medicines are used safely in the trust.
We are looking to improve time critical medicines in the trust all the time and one way patients can help is by bringing in their medicines from home. Bringing in medicines helps for the following reasons:
- Know exactly what medicines you take.
- Prevent missed doses, especially time-critical medicines.
- Keep you on familiar medicines during your stay.
- Make discharge quicker and safer.
- Reduce medicines related waste and protect the environment