The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7224 p699
16 November 2002

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There is widespread support for extending PGDs beyond the NHS

Consultation has revealed wide ranging support for proposals to extend patient group directions (PGDs) beyond the National Health Service.

No objections were raised to a proposal to allow the use of PGDs in the Defence Medical Services (DMS), although both the Association of Scottish Trust Chief Pharmacists and the Scottish Specialists in Pharmaceutical Public Health said that they would expect the DMS to have drug and therapeutics committees so that they could replicate NHS arrangements for PGDs.

No responses objected in principle to extending PGDs to independent hospitals.

The Independent Healthcare Association (IHA) expressed disappointment that residential care homes had not been included in the proposal. The IHA took the view that advising on PGDs should be included in service level agreements with pharmacy providers, but that PGD approval should be by chief pharmacists and not visiting pharmacists.

Alliance Pharmaceuticals Ltd said that a requirement for PGDs to be authorised by local drug and therapeutics committees was unnecessarily bureaucratic because independent health care providers already had to register with four different regulators. The company said that PGDs should be approved by just two committees in each of the three home countries (England, Scotland and Wales) and should then be valid countrywide.

Both the Pharmacy Community Care Liaison Group and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society wanted PGDs to be restricted to organisations under the control of the National Care Standards Commission. The former wanted them to be approved by a single national body, such as the National Patient Safety Agency.

Only the Royal College of Psychiatrists objected to the proposed extension of PGDs to the prison service. It said that necessary improvements to standards had not been made. Other organisations accepted the proposal, but said that PGDs should be authorised by the senior clinician or head of health care at each prison and not by prison governors.

Although many organisations approved the proposal to allow the use of PGDs in police custody suites, reservations were expressed by others. In the main, concerns centred on the diverse nature of police detainees and their likely need for individual attention.

Read the consultation paper (PDF 45K) and comments on it (PDF 120K).

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