Child medicines need better labelling, say Lords
Medicines need to be properly labelled to indicate their suitability for children, a House of Lords Committee said last week.
This was one of the committee’s conclusions after an investigation
into the planned
European Regulation on paediatric medicines (PJ, 17
September 2005, p327). Another was that 50 per cent of medicines given
to children are untested.
One of the problems that flows from the lack of testing is a lack of
information on safe paediatric use. A project to try to address this
is about to be launched by Medicines Partnership and NHS Direct. The
aim is to find a way of meeting parents’ needs for information
about children’s medicines and enhancing existing medicines information
available through NHS Direct Online and the Patient Information Bank.
The project will determine the scope, format and processes for producing
information for parents and adult carers about children’s medicines
and develop some prototype information.
A specific area of interest will be off-label and unlicensed use of medicines
because of the lack of information in this area. The information needs
of parents and adult carers of children are being addressed first because
they are the ones who have to explain things to children after having
understood it themselves.
Dinesh Mehta, executive editor, BNF and BNF for Children, said: “The
vast majority of medicines that community pharmacists dispense for children
are licensed and backed by an enormous body of evidence. However, general
practitioners and pharmacists will inevitably come across medicines that
they will not have seen used in children.”
He added that even though a manufacturer’s summary of product characteristics
might not include information on paediatric use, the BNF for Children
included unlicensed doses and indications for medicines that were effective
for treating childhood illnesses. |
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Pharmaceutical Journal
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