Those in nurse manager jobs should ensure their staff give medicine management the same priority as infection prevention, to avoid mistakes being made when drugs are administered.

Matt Griffiths, a senior nurse for medicines management, claims a change is needed in regard to medicine administration and that it should come from nurses.

"Medication management needs to be on a plateau with infection prevention," he told Nursing Times. "This is an area that we need to put money into because in terms of patient safety it is just as important."

A survey carried out by Nursing Times found that most nurses believed they were more likely to make a drug error if they were interrupted. Nearly 80 per cent of the nurses questioned said protected time for administering medication, would reduce the chance of errors being made. Almost 50 per cent said they believed wearing a tabard would help, as it discouraged people from interrupting.

Findings from a study carried out in 2008 at NHS Grampian, Scotland, found wearing a tabard did actually lead to a reduction in the number of times nurses were interrupted during rounds.

Nurses were interrupted 1,172 times during 233 drugs rounds, although this might seem high, this is a significant decrease from the 2,323 interruptions observed on the 369 rounds before the tabard was introduced.

Jude Scott, the clinical effectiveness facilitator at NHS Grampian, told Nursing Times that the tabard acted as an empowerment tool. However, she fears a lack of understanding among both patients, relatives and even other hospital staff of what the tabard connotes, will stop interruptions being eliminated for good.

''To have more success, people need to be made aware of what the tabard is about. It needs a good publicity drive, such as patient leaflets, ward posters and even the local press,'' she said.