The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7210 p180
10 August 2002

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Copying is a cop-out [more]
Council conundrum [more]

Copying is a cop-out

Like some kind monster from the depths, proposals supposedly aimed at fixing problems caused by the Department of Health’s failure to implement properly the patient packs programme have surfaced again. Four years ago, the Department proposed that manufacturers should supply spare leaflets and labels for their products. At time the we called this idea half-baked and unacceptable in terms of practicality, finance and patient safety (PJ, 19 September 1998, p435).
The latest proposal, contained in a Medicines Control Agency consultation document issued this week (see p181), is that pharmacists should photocopy leaflets or download copies from a website. The passage of time and the addition of some high-tech bells and whistles have not improved this idea. Putting it bluntly, photocopying by pharmacists is a cop-out for the Government.
The real problem with patient packs is the decision taken by Alan Milburn, when he was Minister for Health, not to change the terms of service for GPs and pharmacists to allow complete patient packs to be used for the vast majority of all prescribing and dispensing. Only a proper patient pack programme will solve this. Patients need and deserve properly printed leaflets, given to them in complete patient packs. The profession must, once again, just say “no” to the MCA’s proposals.

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Council conundrum

To date, the only modernisation decision the Council has made is that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society should continue as a regulatory and professional body (PJ, 25 May, p739), a joint role that the profession wants, too. In the light of that decision, members of the Modernisation Steering Group are convinced that the only way for this policy to be realised is through an increase in lay membership on the governing Council: any other configuration will undermine the Society as a modern regulator and weaken the Society’s leadership role. The National Pharmaceutical Association, the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee and the Young Pharmacists Group hold a different view (see p181). They want to see a
professionally-driven Society with the regulatory function running in parallel. In other words, a body with two decision-making arms.
Four NPA board members (all of whom are on the PSNC) and a further two members of the PSNC are also on the Council of the Society. It will be interesting to see how their views are expressed when the Council comes to make its decision about the future structure later this year.

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