From Mr S. Whitaker, MRPharmS
SIR,-I doubt any of your readers working in primary or secondary care will have been surprised by the letter from Angela Hammond (PJ, August 26, p297). I have heard similar accounts of the real-life implications of the patient packs initiative from hundreds of patients in dozens of pharmacies over the past few years. It has long become apparent that merely insisting that tablets and capsules be packaged in blister packs falls so far short of the cure for this dangerous malaise of the pharmaceutical packaging industry that it can hardly be called an initiative at all.
The reply from CP Pharmaceuticals is heartening in as much as it acknowledges a problem and promises to resolve it. However, this approach, encouraging though it is, is a reactive one. It relies on problems being identified by patients or health professionals once a pack is in general circulation, with subsequent resolution many months down the line.
All too often we see new patient packs coming onto the market which concentrate on the aesthetic at the expense of the practical. This belies a fundamental misconception on the part of the pharmaceutical industry. Patient packs are not consumer items; they will never be available for self-selection. The design process for patient packs should have one and only one objective, namely, to present all relevant information about the medicine clearly. Frequently this objective is not even considered and this inevitably results in problems such as those highlighted by Mrs Hammond.
Fortunately, the industry has a lifeboat; help is at hand. Whitaker, Hughes: Audit Matters (WHAM) are able to provide an objective appraisal and packaging audit for products in the pharmaceutical market place. We are backed by the collective experience and broad-based expertise of a large audit panel, all of whom are qualified pharmaceutical chemists. We will provide a constructively critical appraisal of current and prospective packaging and show how it might be improved to better meet the true needs of patients and health care professionals.
WHAM can be contacted via our website at http://www.patientpacks.com/
Simon Whitaker
Cardiff