Differences of opinion often become reduced to a straight choice between two options. But while arguing the respective merits of Option A and Option B, disputants may fail to notice that the answer might be provided either by a combination of A and B or by a different option altogether.
The debate about the provision of emergency hormonal contraception through community pharmacies seems to have been boiled down to a simple choice: either the supply of a prescription-only EHC product under patient group direction or the sale of a deregulated product as a pharmacy medicine. But now the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Council, after a long debate (see p762), has concluded that the optimal solution, in the interest of the patient, is to implement both methods of supply.
The Council must be right. Since Government policy is to widen and speed up public access to health care, and since all family planning organisations support better access to EHC, how can pharmacy argue a case for restricting the number of routes open? And since the profession has for years been pressing for the deregulation of various prescription-only medicines, including EHC, how can it now argue the opposite without looking foolish?
Like the National Pharmaceutical Association and the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, and now the Society's branch representatives' meeting (see p766), the Council strongly favours access to EHC free of charge through community pharmacies within an appropriate protocol. What is more, so does the public, if the reported usage of the Manchester pilot scheme is anything to go by (see p747). But the Council also recognises that an application for the deregulation of Levonelle-2 is likely to be successful.
The apparent success of the Manchester trial suggests that pharmacy organisations should press strongly for its extension to a national scheme. All those in need of EHC should have the right to obtain it from a pharmacy without charge under a patient group direction. But those who are willing and able to purchase EHC as a non-prescription medicine should also have the right to do so, provided they have access to the same level of care as with any other supply route.