The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 278 No 7436 p105
27 January 2007

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• Fitness to practise (2)
• CD storage
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Letters to the Editor

CD storage

Go down the bespoke route

From Mr T. J. Cottingham, MRPharmS

May I offer an answer to the problem of storage of individual daily methadone doses as posed by Bob Dunkley (PJ, 20 January, p73)?

We started managing our substance misuse doses with Methasoft software in late 2005. (The system only allows for supply in daily bottles and not in bulk.) The standard commercial cabinets were unsuitable for holding the quantities of small bottles that we had pre-prepared. So when my pharmacy was being refitted last year, I took the opportunity to design my own Controlled Drug cabinets especially to address the storage problem. I had a number of specific goals all of which had to be fulfilled.

• Security A CD cabinet needs to be secure to a particular standard; the greater the “street value” of the contents, the greater the security required.

• Size I wanted the cabinet to be deep enough to hold at least 14 days’ doses per patient, with each bottle behind the other.

• Access A patient’s dose needs to be found quickly to save staff and patients’ time.

• Refilling Refilling with doses needs to be as easy and efficient as possible to minimise the risk of doses being misplaced.

The resulting CD cabinet that I have had specially built is substantial and secure. The bottles are arranged in rows within drawers separated by aluminium strips. The drawer fronts are made with clear acrylic so the bottle labels are clearly visible. Each drawer is mounted on high quality runners so they can extend fully from the cabinet to make refilling the row an easy job.

Having to go down the bespoke route was expensive but the time savings and enhanced safety have made the effort worthwhile.

Tim Cottingham
Cottingham Pharmacy,
Grimsby

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