The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7199 p717-719
25 May 2002

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  Dispensing
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Letters to the Editor

Dispensing

Time our Society took the lead

From Mr M. Bennett, MRPharmS

John Blake (PJ, 18 May, p683) suggests we ask patients how many days there are in a month. I would suggest that if the question was rephrased to ask how many days there are in four weeks we may then get the answer 28, which seems to me to be a logical period on which to base patient packs for many products.

I fully support his further comments about the "patient pack situation" and his final plea "can someone put some common sense into this ongoing saga".

This in turn links back to your leading article drawing attention to the possibility of a trade union and to the current navel gazing with regard to our Society's "modernisation" proposals. Pharmacists are supposedly the experts on medicines. Our Society supposedly represents our interests. Yet here we are, 10 years after the original EEC Directive regarding patient information leaflets was published, and over three years after the implementation date has passed, being placed in a position where we daily break the law and, more importantly, place patients at risk.

The fact that we blame the Government and urge "someone" to intervene illustrates the weak position that pharmacy finds itself in at the start of the 21st century. We have a Society that should lead us. We should be stating the rules. We should have said that, other than in exceptional circumstances, which must be fully documented, it will be deemed unethical to supply medicines to patients in anything but patient packs.

It is time we told the Government enough is enough — we have the expertise and we will determine the manner in which medicines are supplied.

Martin Bennett
Sheffield

The benefits are enormous

From Mr G. A. Fox, MRPharmS

Please may I refer John Blake (PJ, 18 May, p683) to my correspondence on the same subject (PJ, 2 February, p140).

It is nearly impossible to comply with EEC directive 92/97 on labelling and patient information leaflets without dispensing in original patient packs. Under United Kingdom law the National Health Service directs that we break bulk to exact prescription quantities. At the same time, the Government suggests a pharmacy programme with the emphasis on medicines management for patients. In reality these two concepts are mutually incompatible.

It is now many years since the industry anticipated EEC regulations and at some cost presented most medicines in patient packs. In my pharmacy, around 90 per cent of prescribing is in patient packs after many years of badgering doctors and surgery staff. The benefits are enormous to both patients and staff, and to the economy.

The Department of Health accountants seem to think otherwise with a penny wise, pound foolish view of management. They can have no concept of the cost to the taxpayer of drugs destroyed each month by every pharmacy in the country. Most of those items arise from unmonitored, unorganised and often unwanted prescribing which can be remedied in the main by patient packs. Patient packs also result in great reductions in labour costs and waste within the dispensary therefore reducing NHS and taxpayers expenses.

Pharmacists will be interested to know that I have found much support from the National Pharmaceutical Association in long conversations and correspondence. I have also had support from many quarters in the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and among manufacturers. My letters to the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Health (Lord Hunt) and the Secretary of State for Health (Alan Milburn) at the Department of Health receive no acknowledgement — much less a reply.

May I suggest all pharmacists frustrated like John Blake promote patient packs at a local level and make life easier for patients, doctors and themselves.

Gerald Fox
Dunstable, Bedfordshire

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