The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 271 No 7262 p196
16 August 2003

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The Shipman Inquiry (more)

NPA warns Shipman Inquiry to avoid overburdening pharmacists

A heavy additional burden in the management of Controlled Drugs might result in community pharmacists choosing not to stock them, according to the National Pharmaceutical Association. And this would not be beneficial to patients.

The NPA made its views clear to the Shipman Inquiry in advance of a consultation on the use of CDs (PJ, 9 August, p171). Although the NPA accepts that there is a need to examine the ways that CDs are managed, it stresses that “any additional burden on pharmacists must go no further than is absolutely necessary to protect the public in a way that is proportional to the risk”. The introduction of any new administrative requirements would emphasise the need for pharmacies to have a proper information technology infrastructure, it adds.

The NPA is against suggestions that pharmacists should keep a running balance of CDs until the introduction of electronic CD registers that can automatically calculate balances. Keeping running balances “would not assist in highlighting the activities of an ill-intentioned GP who wanted to use CDs to harm patients”, it says.