The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 272 No 7296 p507
24 April 2004

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· Community pharmacy
· CSM
· Canvassing
· Registration exam
· Law and ethics

Letters to the Editor

Law and ethics

Absurd in the real world

From Mr R. A. Kenward, MRPharmS

Am I alone in reading with disbelief the letter from Roger Woodhouse and response from the Society (PJ, 17 April, p472)? As a retired proprietor and now sometime locum in a representative selection of community pharmacies, I have yet to discover a single pharmacy where prescriptions previously checked and bagged, sometimes with and sometimes without the relevant prescription forms attached, are routinely checked again by the pharmacist when handed out.

I have always considered that in a well run pharmacy, the audit trail provided by the routine signing of the “dispensed by” and “checked by” boxes on the label of each dispensed product provided clear evidence and an adequate audit trail should a query ever arise.

In the real world, where pharmacists must adequately fulfill the needs of checking, supervision, customer queries both at the counter and on the telephone, counselling where necessary and the myriad of other demands on their time, the sheer absurdity of the suggestion that all items handed out should be rechecked quickly becomes apparent.

Robin A. Kenward
Coventry

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