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Letters to the Editor
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Labelling
Perhaps patients should keep their prescriptions
From Dr M. L. Truong, MRPharmS
Graham Southall-Edwards (PJ, 15 January, p54) suggests that community
pharmacy labelling errors are a possible source of confusion. His letter
provides food for thought.
What do we do when we are labelling medicines? We copy a doctor’s
original prescription onto several labels. We attach each part of the copy
to the relevant medicine pack. In most pharmacies, this is a manual process,
so human errors will inevitably occur. Also, sticking labels to packs slows
down the dispensing process. This has been implicitly recognised by some
hospitals, which are now equipped with fully automated dispensing and labelling
systems.
Why do we label medicines? We do it because original prescriptions are
unique and are sent to the NHS and because, under current regulations,
we often have to repackage medicines.
The purpose of a label is to provide the patient with a doctor’s
instructions about his or her medicines and to identify them correctly.
Labels are needed because, with the current system, patients cannot keep
the original prescription and because pharmacists often need to split patient
packs in order to dispense in accordance with the prescription and current
regulations.
Every pharmacist will agree that it is better to check dispensed medicines
against the original prescription. Yet, in the current British system,
the patient has no means to do this, especially if it is a first-time or
one-off prescription. If the patient could keep the original prescription
(or a photocopy), he or she would have all the instructions required and
could at least check that the medicines supplied do match the prescription.
I have worked in France. There, where medicines are supplied in original
packs without stick-on labels, patients are supplied with the original
prescription and keep it. (There is a copy for the French NHS.) If an item
is missing, this allows the patient to know whether it is down to the pharmacist
or to the doctor. And, yes, as in Austria, “the dispensing is done
over the pharmacy counter, right in front of the patient, with the prescription
and the medicines lying on the counter for both pharmacist and patient
to see as the dispensing and patient counselling process proceeds”.
M. L. Truong
Coventry |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal