New information available on cardiac medicines
Families of children with heart conditions will now have access to clearer, more reliable information about their medicines, thanks to a new collaboration between Medicines for Children and the children's pharmacists who make up the Specialist Interest Group (SIG) for Cardiac Medicines, part of the Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacists Group (NPPG).
New partnership helps bring clearer medicines information for children with heart conditions
The NPPG’s Cardiac Specialist Interest Group (‘SIG’) is led by Susie Gage, a paediatric cardiac pharmacist at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children. Susie set up the group to bring together children’s heart specialist pharmacists from across the UK to share knowledge and good practice, all with one goal in mind – to improve care for children with heart problems.
How the collaboration began
The partnership between Medicines for Children and the Cardiac SIG began after a serious incident involving a medicine called digoxin, which is used to help some children with heart conditions. A child was admitted to intensive care with a high level of digoxin in their blood, and the team realised that there was very little information available nationally to help parents understand how to give this medicine safely or what signs to look out for if something wasn’t right.
Susie suggested that Medicines for Children develop a parent-friendly leaflet on digoxin to explain how the medicine works, how to give it safely, and what symptoms might mean the dose is too high. This idea quickly grew into a much larger collaboration.
Working together for families
Since then, the NPPG Cardiac SIG has worked closely with the Medicines for Children team to create a series of new information leaflets about medicines used for heart conditions in children (linked at the bottom of this page), and to update nine existing leaflets.
These leaflets are written in plain, easy-to-understand language and are reviewed by medical experts, pharmacists, and parents to make sure they are accurate, practical, and reassuring.
Supporting parents and carers
All of the new and updated leaflets are freely available on the Medicines for Children website. Parents can be given a link by their healthcare team, or they can download and print the information themselves.
This means families have access to trusted, up-to-date advice whenever they need it – helping them to feel more confident and supported in managing their child’s medicines at home.