Medications play a vital role in treating illness and improving health—but they must be used safely. Whether you’re a patient, carer or health professional, we all have a part to play in preventing medication-related harm.
Improving health literacy helps us use medicines more safely. Health literacy means building our knowledge, skills, understanding and confidence so we can use health information and services to make good decisions about our care.
The 5 Moments for Medication Safety is a health literacy tool designed to support this. It helps patients and carers know the five key moments to pause, check and make sure they understand their medicines. It highlights the moments when patients and carers can take simple actions to stay safe and avoid problems with medicines.
Each moment is a chance to ask questions, understand treatment and feel confident about managing medicines.
What are the 5 moments for medication safety?
The five moments are when you are: starting, taking, adding, reviewing or stopping a medication.
At each of these moments, asking questions and checking information can help keep you or the person you care for safe.
Staff Resources
Introduction to 5 moments for medication safety – recording
Introduction to 5 moments for medication safety – presentation slides