The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 277 No 7407 p11
1 July 2006

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· NHS
· POM-to-P switches
· NHS IT
· Statutory Committee (2)
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Letters to the Editor

POM-to-P switches

Strong case for reclassification of salbutamol

From Professor J. Smith, FRPharmS

I share Paul Burgess’s concern about access to salbutamol inhalers (PJ, 24 June, p747).

My wife and I had a deeply unpleasant experience at a pharmacy in London when her inhaler had run out during a weekend away from home. We were told to go our GP (300 miles away), to a walk-in centre (so a nurse could discharge the professional role the pharmacist was attempting to abdicate) and finally obtained the medicine only after an unpleasant — and public — argument. I doubt many patients with the same problem would have been successful in that pharmacy.

Such episodes appear not to be uncommon and do our profession no credit. Pharmacists should use their emergency supply powers to help, not obstruct, patients. There is also a strong case for reclassification of salbutamol.

Jim Smith
Professor of Pharmacy Practice and Policy
University of Sunderland

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