Every report counts: support the Yellow Card scheme by reporting suspected side effects

The social media campaign calls upon healthcare professionals, national immunisation programme staff, as well as patients, their carers and families, to report suspected side effects from medicines or vaccines using the Yellow Card scheme. This #MedSafetyWeek is the sixth annual awareness week involving medicine regulators from over 60 countries. It focuses on the importance of reporting suspected side effects following vaccination and the MHRA is taking part to further encourage everyone to report.

Vaccines are the best way to protect individuals against infectious diseases and have already saved millions of lives. Like all medicines, side effects can happen. Reporting suspected side effects to the Yellow Card scheme helps the MHRA to identify new side effects and gain more information about known effects.

Every report counts, so the advice to everyone is to report any suspected side effect to medicines, vaccines or medical devices as soon as possible. You can show support during #MedSafetyWeek by sharing the MHRA’s posts on social media and discussing with colleagues, friends and family the importance of reporting suspected side effects to the Yellow Card scheme. Healthcare professionals prescribing, dispensing or administering medicines or vaccines are encouraged to discuss side effects with their patients and to be vigilant for new or rare suspected side effects.

Mick Foy, Head of Pharmacovigilance Strategy at the MHRA, says:

The most important part of our work is making sure the vaccines and medicines you and your family take are effective and acceptably safe. This campaign comes at a crucial time when millions of people in the UK are vaccinated against COVID-19 but is equally applicable to all vaccines and medicines.

Yellow Card scheme reports play a key role in helping the MHRA monitor the safe use of all medicines and vaccines to protect public health through effective regulation.

Reporting suspected side effects using the Yellow Card scheme helps ensure vaccines, medicines and medical devices continue to be used in the best way and adds to the known safety information about healthcare products.