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The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7244 p505
12 April 2003

Prescriptions from hospitals cause problems in the community

GHP/NPA joint award

The Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists and the National Pharmaceutical Association are inviting applications for their joint pharmacy practice award, given in association with Merck Sharp & Dohme.

The award of £5,000 is open to pharmacists from any branch of the profession, but must reflect a joint project between community or primary care pharmacy and hospital pharmacy.

Application packs are available on the websites of the GHP (www.ghp.org.uk) and the NPA (www.npa.co.uk) or from MSD on 01992 452370.

The closing date is 31 July.

Hospital doctors receive inadequate training in writing outpatient prescriptions, according to preliminary research presented by Mike Wilcock, Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro, speaking on 7 April at the launch of the 2003 joint National Pharmaceutical Association and Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists award, sponsored by Merck Sharp & Dohme.

Mr Wilcock, who won the 2002 MSD award with colleague Ros McLaughlin, also suggested that community pharmacists find it difficult to contact hospital-based prescribers to query items on FP10(HP) prescription forms.

The final results from the project, which is examining how community pharmacists can help secondary care prescribers, will be presented at the British Pharmaceutical Conference in Harrogate in September.

The MSD award aims to promote partnership between pharmacists working in primary and secondary health care in order to improve patient care.