Project 845 | PALD in General Practice

Penicillin Allergy De-Labelling (PADL) in general practice: An implementation study to inform national roll out

A lot of people are told they are allergic to penicillin. But most of them are not really allergic. If someone is told they have this allergy, they are not given penicillin. Instead, they get other medicines that may not work as well. This can make them more unwell; more people have to go to hospital, infections can become harder to treat, and in some cases, people can become very ill or even die.
We know most people do not have an allergy because they have never had a very serious reaction. When these people are tested, most are confirmed not to be allergic. But there are not many places to do these tests. So, we need new ways to check if people are really allergic.
One way is for doctors or pharmacists to check low risk people. These are people who are very unlikely to be allergic because they have taken penicillin before without a problem. So, they do not need a test. A project in Cornwall is already doing this. We want to use their approach in other places in the UK, like GP practices in a big city, to see if it works well there too.
We will talk to patients and staff from the Cornwall project. We will ask them what worked well and what could be better. Then we will make changes to make sure it works well in different places and test it out. We will count how many people were tested and how many were not allergic, and ask their views on the new penicillin allergy checks.
We have spoken to patients who were told they are allergic to penicillin. They thought this study was a good idea as they would not feel confident to question their allergy on their own. They also said people should know how penicillin can help them. We will keep working with patients during the study to make sure the study stays focused on them.
At the end of the study, we will share what we have learned. We will tell policy makers, researchers, and the public.