The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 272 No 7284 p120
31 January 2004

This article
Reprint
Photocopy

PDF* 80K

  Decision support
  Compliance
  CD regulations
  Dispensing
  Pharmacy assistants
  Packaging
  Alcohol metabolism
  Capacity planning
  Reciprocity
  The Charter

Letters to the Editor

Packaging

Continuing problems

From Mr C. V. Hammond, FRPharms

A. G. Hopkins’s letter (PJ, 17 January, p53) arrived as I was searching for a tablet that had fallen and rolled under the dressing table. Packs have only slightly improved since I wrote to the PJ in 1986 (PJ, 20/27 December 1986, p820). In that letter, I suggested the use of the sharp point of, for example, a small knitting needle or scissors, to overcome the difficulty of opening blister packs. In 1986 I was 69 years old and was able to say that “I find that it is not too difficult to remove the contents by either peeling back the foil or by gently levering the product out on a firm surface”.

As a patient who finds that calendar packs are a useful aide-memoire to dose compliance, I consider it a retrograde step to remove the product from the blister in advance of taking the dose. The tablet is just as likely to “disappear”, as is the case when trying to pick up small tablets that fall from an opened bottle. Reduced cognitive awareness, together with the result of a slight stroke, does not help.

Victor Hammond
Birkdale, Merseyside

Send your letter to The Editor

Previous Topic (Pharmacy assistants)
Next Topic (Alcohol metabolism)