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Letters to the Editor
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Packaging
Always complain when things are unsatisfactory
From Mr D. J. Fallon, MRPharmS
It is good to see a pharmacist actively complaining about the poor quality
of pack designs from APS (PJ, 21 August, p255).
Exactly five years ago, the concerns of pharmacists, including myself,
about APS designs were strongly expressed in the PJ, and the sales and
marketing director of APS, John Beighton, stated in reply to John Gentle
(PJ, 14 August 1999, p240) that APS “took great care to involve
community pharmacy in the design”, had “noted the concerns
of your correspondent and others” and “are in the process
of introducing more colours where there are potential identification
problems”.
I spent some time at that stage speaking directly to Mr Beighton on the
telephone, following a dispensing error that proved expensive to resolve,
and wrote repeatedly to him from November 2000 onwards with a complete
analysis of the faults of his pack designs and full advice on how to
resolve all issues.
It is now clear that I wasted my time, and the statements made by APS
were meaningless. I would encourage pharmacists to use their own judgement,
and always complain when things are unsatisfactory.
Dennis Fallon
Birmingham
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JOHN BEIGHTON, managing director, APS Berk, replies:
APS Berk’s
packaging was indeed developed with the co-operation of our pharmacy customers
and the development of the design over the past five years has always
been with community pharmacy input. From 2000 we responded to customers’ comments
by introducing more colours and stripes; we have also made the product
names highly prominent on a white background and moved some of the information
to make the “back of pack” less busy, and leave space for
the dispensary label. We have introduced a random pattern on blister
strips.
However, due to our growing range we have now made the decision to
redesign our packs more radically and have recently had a meeting
with the Medicines and Healthcare
products Regulatory Agency to discuss pack design and the use of colour to
differentiate between strengths and products. We do value the feedback
of all our customers
and are in the process of running focus groups in both community and hospital
pharmacy, where this feedback is listened to and acted upon. |
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal