The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7158 p121-123
28 July 2001

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Self-checking

Correcting wrong impressions

From Mr N. Dixon, MRPharmS

I was asked to comment on the place of self-checking by pharmacy technicians (PJ, 7 July, p11). I had written a letter to the editor in the same issue in which I called for a debate on the use of checking technicians in the dispensing of repeat prescriptions, and thought I was commenting on this. I would like to correct any wrong impression that may have been given by my remarks.

I think that properly trained dispensing technicians would be no worse than pharmacists at self-checking, but can see no circumstances when it would be necessary. Under what circumstances would a technician find himself or herself alone in a pharmacy dispensing a prescription which had been previously given the clinical approval of a pharmacist? I cannot think of any.

Given that an independent check on a prescription is always advisable, to raise this as an issue does pharmacy no favours. We seem to be continually looking at ways in which we can perform tasks for a minimum charge instead of defining the standard and using this standard to decide the cost. Thus we find ourselves supplying medicines for 93p an item with little pharmacist input and others are now seeking to provide advice and services that would have been better provided at the point of dispensing.

It would be more helpful if the Royal Pharmaceutical Society were to decide under what circumstances a pharmacy could function without an independent accuracy check and rigorously enforce those standards.

Noel Dixon
Dixon and Hall Ltd,
Stanley, Co Durham

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