The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7196 p611-613
4 May 2002

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Letters to the Editor

The Profession

Time to stick labels where they belong?

From Mr D. R. Kaye, MRPharmS

Although I have never been to Germany one of the things that strikes me about the place is that they do not label medicines. Here is the home of the Audi TT, and a health system that is the envy of Tony Blair, yet there are no labels on boxes of tablets.

Could anyone estimate the amount of money that the National Health Service spends on labels and labelling? In hospital, how many over-the-counter packs are relabelled with the same information to provide a space for accident and emergency staff not to write the patient's name? There are pre-packing units which specialise in the business. Changes in out of hours services means that the need for pre-labelled products will increase further. The use of patients' own medicines in hospital means that packs are constantly relabelled as doses change. The time spent relabelling could be used to explain to patients why their dose had changed.

So why do we label everything? Do we label things as a substitute for two-way communication? As we move from patient compliance to concordance labels are an out-moded concept, a symbol of medical hegemony. Being British are we so reserved that we use labels as an opportunity to avoid talking to a stranger? If we did not label drugs pharmacists would have to discuss the contents of a bag of medicine with a patient, rather than hand it to them as happened with a recent prescription of mine. I might has well have received my prescription in the post.

Verbal communication should be part of pharmacy's defence against electronic retailing.

Pharmacists would be able to identify those patients who do not understand the instructions given, in the time that is currently taken up preparing, applying and checking labels.

There would be other benefits. Manufacturers would no longer have to put panels on boxes which say "affix label here", yet which are too small to fit a label. Patients would no longer risk poking their eyes out on flagged labels on eye-drops. Children would no longer be advised to avoid alcohol, driving or operating machinery.

As the NHS is modernised is it time to stick labels where they really belong, into Room 101 at the Department of Health?

David Kaye
Swinton, Manchester

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