The purpose of this fact sheet is to help cancer patients, their families, carers or volunteers understand what to expect from a health service providing people with medications for cancer.

This issue includes items on patient safety practices, potentially preventable readmissions, patient and family engagement, transitions of care, homelessness, medication safety, medication reconciliation and Hepatitis C virus and more.

Also covered is the latest issue of Public Health Research & Practice along with the latest online papers from BMJ Quality & Safety and the International Journal for Quality in Health Care and the latest from the UK’s NICE.

Technical note on the antimicrobial medicines dispensing report 2013-14 to 2017-18.

This file contains rates for those SA3s that fall in the top 10% or bottom 10% of all SA3s for each of the five years for these indicators:

• Number of PBS/RPBS prescriptions dispensed for antimicrobials per 100,000 people, 2013–14 to 2017–18
• Number of PBS/RPBS prescriptions dispensed for amoxicillin per 100,000 people, 2013–14 to 2017–18 
• Number of PBS/RPBS prescriptions dispensed for amoxicillin-clavulanate per 100,000 people, 2013–14 to 2017–18 

This file contains rates by SA3 by PHN and rates by PHN for these indicators:

• Number of PBS/RPBS prescriptions dispensed for antimicrobial medicines per 100,000 people, all ages, 2017–18
• Number of PBS/RPBS prescriptions dispensed for amoxicillin per 100,000 people, all ages, 2017–18
• Number of PBS/RPBS prescriptions dispensed for amoxicillin-clavulanate per 100,000 people, all ages, 2017–18