AESGP

Both pharmacists and over-the-counter medicines need to come from the back to the front of pharmacies. This was necessary if the responsible use of self-medication was to be increased, Mr SIMON PULSFORD (president, Proprietary Association of Great Britain) said, reporting the conclusions of one of three workshop sessions held during the meeting.
Having OTC medicines on open display satisfied the needs of customers to touch, read about and select the product they wanted. If pharmacists came out from behind the counter then they could also satisfy their own needs for controlling sales and maintaining customer safety by being present to give advice.
The training of pharmacists in communication skills was vital if this scenario was to be achieved, Mr Pulsford added. One of the recommendations made by the workshop was that the AESGP should hold meetings with representatives of European schools of pharmacy to ensure that communication skills were given a higher priority on the schools' curriculums.
Earlier, the meeting heard how the open sale of OTC medicines was being encouraged in Finland. Mrs MAIJA PERHO (minister of health, Finland) told the meeting that patients in Finland had a legal right to be informed about their illnesses and the different forms of treatment available to them.
Pharmacies in Finland were able to display most non-prescription medicines on open shelves. However, a recent survey had shown that, although patients were receiving high quality information from pharmacists about the medicines they purchased, they had to ask for it first. That problem was not unique to Finland, she said.
A four-year project had started at the beginning of the year. It aimed to make giving information a routine part of pharmacy practice. The first part of the project was surveys at national, regional and local levels to identify training needs. New methods of working would be introduced as a result of this and the quality of the new methods would be monitored.
Computer technology was a key part of information provision, and pharmacies in Finland were being equipped with databases of information on prescription medicines. A touchscreen system, giving more general health information, was also available.

Pharmacies in Finland are allowed to display most non-prescription medicines on open shelves

Selling stories not products to tomorrow's consumers

Tomorrow's consumers would be buying more than just the materialistic value of the products they purchased - they would be buying emotions and stories too, Mr ROLF JENSEN (director, Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies, Denmark) said. "As soon as you take quality for granted, the consumer will move on and ask for an appeal to the heart. An expert talks to a person's head but a story teller talks to the heart." Some companies, such as Nike, were already adapting to what Mr Jensen called the "dream society". Nike attached lots of different stories to its sporting products. The company could sell pharmaceutical products under its brand name if they fitted its story, he said. He defined six new market categories that appealed to different kinds of emotions. These were adventure, love and belonging, care, who-am-I, peace of mind, and convictions. As an example, he said that in the adventure category people travelling the world wanted to be told how medicines would allow them to keep going, rather than be told about specific health problems. Two particular trends for the future would affect the way in which products were sold. The first was the disappearance of gender differences in terms of work and lifestyles. The second was the increase in working hours and the rise of the work place as a social centre of life (alongside the home or family). Mr Jensen said that the successful over-the-counter medicine of the future would be a strong brand with a story attached. Quality would be taken for granted and it would be "somewhat ethical".

Rolf Jensen: customers buy more than just the value of the product

No DTC advertising in Europe?

European Commission officials gave the strongest hint yet that direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines would not be permitted in Europe. Speaking during a panel discussion session, Dr PHILIPPE BRUNET (head of pharmaceuticals and cosmetic unit, European Commission) said that the EC had not yet decided anything in this area. It was aware of the budgetary implications of DTC advertising which had been seen in the United States since such advertising was permitted in 1997.
The current advertising regulations in Europe were restrictive, he said. Some changes were needed to accommodate the reality of the internet. If there was to be a major change in Europe "we will have to show that there is a public health interest in the provision of information directly from manufacturers to consumers". Some kinds of [unbranded] patient awareness campaigns might be allowed, but these would have to take into consideration both the budgetary restrictions and the different cultural perspectives in Europe.
Mr FERNAND SAUER (director, European Medicines Evaluation Agency) said that there was a strict delineation in European culture between over-the-counter medicines (which could be advertised) and prescription only medicines (which could not).
He understood that staff at the American Food and Drug Administration now regretted their decision to allow DTC advertising for prescription medicines.
He did not think that DTC advertising would be in the interests of the European pharmaceutical industry. In some countries, such advertising would disallow state reimbursement of the products.
"There should not be junk mail for pharmaceuticals in Europe," he concluded.

Participants at the AESGP meeting were able to visit two pharmacies serving suburbs of the capital, Helsinki, and see how the open sale of non-prescription medicines and the provision of information and advice to customers was handled.
Vuosaaren Pharmacy is situated in the Columbus shopping centre and is the only pharmacy serving the 25,000 people living in the suburb of Vuosaari. It has 30 staff, 20 of whom work full-time. On the staff are 12 pharmacists who have studied for the three-year bachelor of pharmacy degree and three pharmacists, including the owner, who have the six-year master of pharmacy degree. The pharmacists dispense around 120,000 prescriptions per year (with each prescription having up to two items), around 500 per day on a typical weekday.
Most non-prescription medicines are on open display with only a few products, such as nicotine replacement therapy, restricted to sale by pharmacists only. Two pharmacists are present in the medicines area to offer advice to customers.
The pharmacy has an Elias touchscreen information system installed. This provides advice on common ailments and is, apparently, well used by customers. The pharmacy also has its own drug information system which contains details of prescription medicines and articles from scientific journals which are scanned and indexed by the pharmacists. Each of the 13 till points has access to this system which can be used when prescriptions are received and handed out.
The pharmacy in Laajasala serves a population of around 20,000. Its staff of 12, including six pharmacists, dispense around 69,000 prescriptions per year.

Touchscreen systems provide customers with information on common ailments