From Mrs E. Mann, MRPharmS
SIR,—I was horrified to read in response to a letter from Mr D. Coleman that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society was not able to defend a pharmacist who fails to comply with the regulations on failure to supply a patient information leaflet (PJ, April 8, p544).
I have an article from The Pharmaceutical Journal (December 19/26, 1998, p960) in which Mr Roger Odd (the Society's head of professional and scientific support) states that pharmacists should continue to dispense in 1999 in the same way as in 1998 until new guidance was received from the Department of Health. I do not remember any such guidance being published. I also do not remember any article giving guidance on how pharmacists can produce their own PILs, so that they fully comply with the necessary legislation.
A couple of weeks ago when I was doing a locum, a very irate woman returned to our pharmacy. Her son had been dispensed an original pack of Zirtek oral solution (fortunately not be me) but had received no PIL. On calling out an on-call doctor, she had been told that the pharmacist had committed an offence by not supplying a PIL and that the reason this happened was because pharmacists dispensed cheap drugs from abroad to make money and therefore did not have the necessary leaflets to comply with the law. He recommended that she report the pharmacist to the appropriate authority.
Fortunately, I was able to show her that the Zirtek was not a parallel import and that none of our packs had PIL leaflets in them. I explained the situation to her and she appeared to calm down. However, it must be comforting for the pharmacist that did dispense the Zirtek to know that if the woman follows or has followed the on-call doctor's advice, the pharmacist will receive no help from the Society.
If we dispense without a PIL we get done. If we refuse to dispense products, which do not have a PIL, we are in breach of our terms of service and if we produce our own and they do not comply fully with the law we get done. I am sure the British Medical Association would not be as docile if a doctor was placed in a similar position.
It is about time the position was clarified and, if a PIL is required, that an appropriate qualified person is employed by the Society to produce legal leaflets which we can photocopy and distribute. We do not need the bland paragraph of the Law and Ethics Bulletin and a "we will not support you" statement.
Elaine Mann
Wakefield, West Yorkshire