A failure by GPs and hospital doctors to share information about patients’ medicines could be harming patients, a report from the Care Quality Commission, the independent regulator of the English NHS, says.

The report, published on October 27, says that the NHS must do more to prevent patients coming to harm from the medicines they take after discharge from hospital.

Sharing of vital information when people move between services has to improve, says the report, for which the commission visited 12 primary care trusts (PCTs) and surveyed 280 of their general practices.

Incidents involving drugs, such as …