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· Brand swapping
Letters to the Editor
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Brand swapping
Why not give pharmacists a final say?
From Mr C. Morris, MRPharmS
I read with interest the article on patients being warned not
to accept a change in their brand of epilepsy drug (PJ, 8 October, p435). I was especially
interested to read that 55 per cent of prescribers interviewed were opposed
to “pharmacists making switches”.
I have lost count of the number of times that I have received prescriptions
with generically prescribed insulin, epilepsy medicines, hormone replacement
therapy — the list is almost endless. Add to that the number of prescriptions
that have had the brand actively changed by the doctor and you get a great
number of prescriptions that I have had no choice but to swap the brand
of the drug given or spend time that I cannot afford trying to sort out
exactly what the doctor meant to prescribe in the first place.
Pharmacists have no choice over the brand given if the brand is not specified.
We are told what we can give by the Drug Tariff.
I was glad to see that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the National Prescribing
Centre and the British National Formulary all recommend that brands not
be swapped — perhaps they could all talk to the prescribers and ask
them not to prescribe low therapeutic index drugs generically? Or if not,
perhaps they could talk to the Prescription Pricing Authority?
Or, why not give pharmacists the final say on what is given? All of these
problems could be solved in one move. When doctors prescribe whatever the
drug representatives have told them to, we should overrule if we believe
this is necessary.
Simple, huh?
Chris Morris
Newquay, Cornwall
Correction
The title of this letter should have read “Why not give pharmacists the final say?” |
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal