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3 Career pathway set for critical care pharmacists Guidance on the practice, skills and experience needed by pharmacists who want to specialise in adult critical care in England has been published by the Department of Health
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3 Generics-UK settles price-fixing case for £12m Generics UK has agreed to pay £12m to the NHS to bring to an end civil proceedings over the Department of Health’s price fixing claim against the company
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3 Glastonbury among first to sell chloramphenicol eye drops The Arena Pharmacy at Glastonbury Festival was one of the first pharmacies in the UK to sell chloramphenicol eye drops over the counter last week
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3 Generics reimbursement scheme finalised The Category M scheme for deciding the NHS reimbursement prices of generic medicines in England and Wales has been fixed for five years and will be supplemented by a scheme using wholesaler’s prices
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4 Trusts comply with NPSA potassium chloride alert NHS trusts are adhering to the storage and documentation requirements for potassium chloride concentrate solution specified in the first National Patient Safety Agency alert issued in 2002
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4 Poor adherence to aseptic technique in UK hospitals highlighted Nursing staff in UK hospitals are worse than those in Germany or France at following good aseptic techniques when preparing and administering intravenous drugs, according to data collected in 2001–02 ...more
4 Pharmacist prescribing evaluation to begin An evaluation of supplementary prescribing by pharmacists, expected to assess views of patients, doctors and pharmacists, is to be carried out by the University of Sheffield
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4 Medicine administration errors reduced by learning package An online learning package, written with the involvement of pharmacists, has resulted in a 30 per cent reduction in medication administration errors among nurses at the Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust, London
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4 £0.5m for drug errors project A research project to measure the prevalence of medication errors in nursing homes has received £505,000 funding from the Patient Safety Research Programme ...more
4 Post-admission ward rounds Having a pharmacist on post-admission ward rounds improves the accuracy of drug history taking ...more
5 European COX-2 review recommends new warnings Additional safety warnings and new contra-indications are needed for cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors because of their associated cardiovascular risks, a review by the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) has concluded ...more
5 Device alerts patients to take their medicines Pharmacists in Staffordshire are taking part in a project designed to help older or vulnerable people remember to take their medicines with the aid of an electronic device ...more
5 Generics companies “likely to face charges” Criminal charges related to price-fixing are likely to be brought against at least one generics company and some of its senior executives
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5 PIL user testing mandatory Guidance on user testing of patient information leaflets was published by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency this week ...more
5 Home oxygen service on hold DeVilbiss Medequip, which failed to win a new Department of Health home oxygen service contract, has been granted an injunction halting progress with the scheme ...more
5 Health ministerial change Ministerial changes were announced by the Scottish Executive this week ...more
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6 Mental illness care needs to cover all facets of health Health care professionals need to address all the health-related issues experienced by people with severe mental illness (SMI), not just the mental illness itself ...more
6 Health inequalities “continue to increase” Health inequalities are continuing to increase despite publication of several public health strategies over the past few years, Gul Root, principal pharmacist at the Department of Health, told delegates at a College of Pharmacy Practice conference last week ...more
6 Pharmacists in Wales sent new contract newsletter Every pharmacist in Wales was sent a newsletter from the Welsh Assembly Government this week outlining the basic concepts of the new pharmacy contract
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6 Small waste producers need not contact Environment Agency Primary care organisations and pharmacy contractors in England and Wales need not spend money notifying the Environment Agency that a pharmacy is a hazardous waste producer unless they expect to produce more than 200kg of this waste per year, says the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee ...more
7 Review throws doubt over use of vitamin C for prevention of colds A review of studies on vitamin C has concluded that use of the vitamin does little to prevent people catching the common cold ...more
7 Primary care consultation to canvas consumers’ viewsEnglish health consumers’ views on how health care outside hospitals should be reshaped are to be canvassed from September by the Department of Health ...more
7 OTC industry is drowning in regulation, says PAGB Pharmaceutical companies and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency are drowning in a sea of regulation that they are powerless to deal with ...more
7 Homoeopathic packs may carry indications Marketing claims to treat minor self-limiting conditions will be allowed on the packaging of homoeopathic medicines, if proposals from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency are accepted ...more
7 NPA develops PCT commissioning resource for members The National Pharmaceutical Association has developed a resource for its members providing information about how primary care trusts commission services ...more
8 Early morning BP surge in hypertensive patients Half of patients with mild to moderate hypertension show an early morning blood pressure (BP) surge of 25mmHg or more, which could increase their risk of cardiovascular events, warned researchers at last week’s European Meeting on Hypertension held in Milan ...more
8 Home monitoring of BP gets more patients to target Getting patients to monitor their blood pressure at home nearly doubles the number reaching target levels, according to a Finnish general practice-based study ...more
8 Older antihypertensive drugs more likely to cause erectile dysfunction than newer agents Older antihypertensives — and combinations of agents — are more likely to cause erectile dysfunction (ED) than some of the newer agents, according to new research ...more
8 Winners of ABPI pharmacist awards announced this week Pharmacists involved in projects including a smoking cessation service and one using PDAs (personal digital assistants) to monitor pharmacists’ interventions were among the winners of the inaugural Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry’s pharmacist awards, it was announced this week ...more
8 Antihypertensives in diabetes In people with diabetes, diuretics work as well as angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors and calcium channel blockers in protecting against heart attack ...more
9 Rapid-infusion rituximab helps meet cancer targets Rapid infusion of rituximab (MabThera) helps hospitals to meet demands for lymphoma treatment, according to a study ...more
9 Dopamine agonist relieves dyskinesias Starting younger patients with Parkinson’s disease on a dopamine agonist rather than levodopa pays dividends in the long-term, data from a 10-year study suggest ...more
9 Pain neglected in depression Patients with depression are likely to visit their GP because of unrelieved aches and pains, sleep problems and fatigue, according to a new survey ...more
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