The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7236 p226
15 February 2003

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Letters to the Editor

Community pharmacy

An irony

From Mr A. E. J. Sterry, MRPharmS

It seems ironic that we now have to satisfy the Department of Health of our competence to practise when that same Department issues rules to the Prescription Pricing Authority that prevent a pharmacist from deciding how many paracetamol tablets a patient might need to cover a two-month period of treatment. I believed I had developed sufficiently as a "professional" to decide that 200 would suffice but the prescription was returned to me so I could send it back to the consultant for him to make the decision. Since a second item on the prescription was worth nearly £600, I did not bother.

I just hope that in future pharmacists will have proved themselves sufficiently professionally developed to be able to make such a simple decision and get it through the pricing circus.

Alan Sterry
Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire

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