Novel risk assessment tool CATALYST identifies patients with an inaccurate label of penicillin allergy for de-labelling without direct oral penicillin challenge in primary care.
Around 1 in 10 of the UK population are currently labelled as having a penicillin allergy. Research suggests that over 5 million of these people are not truly allergic. Having a penicillin allergy is associated with significant negative health impact. CATALYST is an innovative allergy risk assessment tool designed in North Tyneside to identify patients unlikely to have a true allergy.
The pilot project was carried out in a 8000 patient list size practice. Patients with a coded penicillin allergy were identified using EMIS searches and identified 172 patients. From this group, 59patients were coded as having penicillin allergy for more than 10 years. We then used the CATALYST Penicillin Allergy Assessment criteria to review patients according to their reaction recorded to determine which Level they were in (Green/Amber/Red).The pilot project identified 58 patients in the Green group. The Pharmacy team successfully contacted 48 of these patients. 11 patients (23%) were successfully de-labelled following discussion with the Pharmacist. 94% of patients were satisfied with their CATALYST assessment, with 61% feeling confident about taking a penicillin in the future.
Patients with inaccurate penicillin allergy labels can be identified and safely de-labelled without DOPC using the CATALYST tool in primary care. This will improve patients outcome as more suitable first line antibiotics can be offered to patients in future.
