The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7185 p209-212
16 February 2002

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Letters to the Editor

Community pharmacy (3 letters)

Ibuprofen and a sandwich, please!

From Dr B. Wells, MRPharmS

I was disappointed to see the Lloydspharmacy advertisement in The Journal of 2 February, which apparently poked fun at those colleagues who work for a large multiple whose pharmacies supply vital sustenance to a hungry work force.

Does Lloyds not realise that selling sandwiches is becoming a much more sophisticated and intellectually demanding business these days? Not only is it necessary for pharmacists to determine which type of bread is required, but there are a large variety of healthy filling options to pick from as well.

It is also vital for consumers to receive appropriate counselling. For instance, remember to eat the sandwich at least one hour after penicillin V tablets, but immediately before consuming non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Depressed purchasers of cheese sandwiches should be advised to choose another filling if they have taken monoamine oxidase inhibiting drugs within the previous two weeks. Similarly, those who wash down their BLT sandwich with a healthy shot of grapefruit juice should be advised that if they have recently been prescribed terfenadine, they should avoid it for a while. Can anybody remember receiving useful advice like this from a bakery? I doubt it!

If I suddenly became stricken with a bad headache at lunchtime and went to purchase ibuprofen tablets from Lloyds, I would not be able to buy a sandwich to have immediately before my dose, thus placing me at risk of gastrointestinal consequences. It is a good job, for consumers, that other large pharmacy chains adopt a more responsible attitude and, in addition to selling light refreshments and employing consultant pharmacists, also sell the ibuprofen (but not the sandwiches) on offer with three packs for the price of two.

No Lloyds, you have got it wrong! All sandwiches should be sold from pharmacies, since it is the only way to ensure that consumers are given the full picture. It may not be glamorous, but it beats nipping down to the local surgery on an old moped to collect repeat prescriptions.

Brian Wells
Aldborough, North Humberside

Keeping records of Viagra

From Mr J. R. Martin, MRPharmS

I see from the Statutory Committee inquiries (PJ, 5/12 January, p41) Official Notice part 3 that a complaint against a superintendent pharmacist is being heard regarding that, along with a probably more serious matter, he "failed to have adequate systems in place to ensure that accurate records of Viagra were kept".

Unless Viagra has been reclassified as a Schedule 2 Controlled Drug without my noticing, I can find no reference to keeping any particular records of Viagra stocks in the Medicines, Ethics and Practice guide, in the National Pharmaceutical Association guide to dispensing or on the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's website.

Jonathan Martin
Wallingford, Oxfordshire

The aim of the AIMp

From Mr N. Baumber, FRPharmS

Let us go back to basics. Multiples large and small will inherit the earth under the present contract for the simple reason that remuneration for dispensing prescriptions does not deliver what it was set up to do for single pharmacy owners. The advantage is with you if you own a multiple group and concentrate your buying power to beat the discount scale.

The declared aim of the Association of Independent Multiple Pharmacies (AIMp) is to represent a small number of like-minded businessmen and women owning 10 to 200 pharmacies (PJ, 2 February, p144). Their objectives must surely be to influence the contract negotiations and to retain a payment system that allows them to hide the rewards of purchasing power behind the veil of incorporation.

It seems that AIMp has been launched now, partly because the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee is due to consult interested parties in the creation of a new constitution and partly to shape the form of the new contract to be negotiated next year.

This will inevitably change the voting balance and may open the way to allowing representation of AIMp if a market share structure is adopted.

The Company Chemists Association and Co-operative Pharmacy Technical Panel are guaranteed representation on the PSNC but forgo regional representation. If the AIMp is allowed a place as of right on the PSNC, would multiple owners want to forgo their opportunity to stand as regional representatives, or relinquish the chance of their nomination from the National Pharmaceutical Association board? I doubt it, since two AIMp members are already PSNC members via the traditional routes, and the AIMp's chairman is standing for election this year. They will want all three avenues open.

The formation of this new pressure group by the multiples serves only to highlight the appalling lack of political organisation, coherent policy, and co-ordinated developmental support for contractors who run their own community pharmacy.

My hope is that contractors will respond in depth and make some demands of their own when they are asked to comment on the new constitutions for local pharmaceutical committees and the PSNC. In the end it is the new balance of interests that will determine the fate of the contract negotiations and the survival of the independent community pharmacy.

Noel Baumber
Grantham, Lincolnshire

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