Guidance sought on period of validity for prescription owing slips and related issues
A motion asking the Society to issue guidance on the period for which a prescription owing slip should remain valid was carried by the branch
representatives' meeting.
Proposing the motion, Steven Curtis (Harrow and Hillingdon) said that
although the period of validity of prescriptions was set out in legislation,
there was no validity period specified for owing slips. There are also
issues about the legal definitions of certain words, such as “supply”.
Another issue is “accidental fraud”, which could occur when
a pharmacist claims payment for the quantity prescribed but the patient
given an owing slip fails to claim the outstanding quantity.
“The bottom line,” said Mr Curtis, “is it is an openly
worded motion. It is not asking too much more than just to generate some
guidance,
which is what we are all after. We need some clarity on this. It is an
issue that is not an uncommon scenario given the spate of out-of-stocks
in the world today.”
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal