Correcting a High-Alert Medication Circular
A district hospital's pharmacy has drafted a circular for ward nurses about the new high-alert medication policy. The draft reads:
"All nurses are requested to note that henceforth the high-alert drugs will be keep in the red tray only. Before administration, two nurses must verify the dose, and the patient's identity should be confirmed by them. Due to the fact that look-alike labels is a major cause of error, all such drugs should be stored separately. Nurses whom have not attended the training must not administer these drugs. Kindly do the needful at the earliest."
The draft went out to two wards before anyone read it closely. The Chief Pharmacist must send a corrected version the same day; she cannot change the policy itself, only the language. She also has to decide whether the circular should be sent to ward clerks, who do not administer drugs but do receive and store stock.
1. Identify five distinct language errors in the draft, name each error type, and give the corrected form.
Read the worked answer
1. "will be keep" → "will be kept". Error type: faulty passive construction. The passive needs the past participle after "be"; "keep" is the base form.
2. "look-alike labels is" → "look-alike labels are". Error type: subject–verb agreement. The subject "labels" is plural, so the verb must be plural, whatever the singular-looking noun "error" later in the clause suggests.
3. "Nurses whom have not attended" → "Nurses who have not attended". Error type: relative pronoun case. "Who" is the subject of "have attended"; "whom" would be correct only as an object.
4. "Due to the fact that" → "Because". Error type: wordiness/redundancy. Five words do the work of one, and the inflated phrase is a common source of clumsy official prose.
5. "Kindly do the needful at the earliest" → "Please comply by 15 March". Error type: vague register/Indianism. The phrase names no action, no addressee and no deadline, so it is unenforceable in a policy document.
A sixth, if needed: "the patient's identity should be confirmed by them" hides the agent in a passive; "they must confirm the patient's identity" is clearer and sits parallel to "must verify".
2. Rewrite the circular in no more than 55 words, in formal register, keeping all policy content and adding nothing new.
Read the worked answer
Rewritten circular (52 words):
"High-alert medicines will be kept only in the red tray. Before administration, two nurses must check the dose and confirm the patient's identity. Because look-alike labels are a common cause of error, store these medicines separately. Nurses who have not completed the training must not administer them. Please comply by 15 March."
Why these choices:
- Active voice throughout ("two nurses must check") removes the ambiguity of "should be confirmed by them".
- "Because" replaces the five-word "due to the fact that" without changing meaning.
- Each rule is one sentence, so a nurse can be held to a single, checkable obligation.
- "Please comply by 15 March" replaces "do the needful at the earliest" and supplies a date - the only added item, and a necessary one for a deadline that the original left open.
- No policy content is altered: red tray, two-nurse check, identity confirmation, separate storage, training prerequisite all survive.
3. Should the circular go to ward clerks? Justify your decision on audience and purpose, and draft one sentence for the covering note if it does.
Read the worked answer
Decision: send it, but as an information copy, not an action copy.
Reasoning. Audience and purpose have to match. The circular's action requirements - two-nurse verification, identity confirmation, administration - can only be performed by nurses who administer medicines, and a clerk cannot be disciplined for failing to carry them out. But two elements do touch clerks: the red tray is a storage location, and separate storage of look-alike stock is a stock-handling rule. Clerks who receive and shelve deliveries can breach the storage rule without ever administering a dose. Withholding the circular entirely would therefore leave a real gap at the point where the error actually starts - the shelf.
Covering-note sentence:
"This circular is circulated to ward clerks for information only; the red-tray and separate-storage requirements apply to any staff member who receives, stores or issues these medicines, while the verification and administration requirements apply to nurses only."
That single sentence preserves the audience distinction, prevents the clerk from assuming the whole document is not their concern, and keeps the accountability lines clean for any later audit.