Be more vigilant!
With so much effort being made by the leading pharmacy bodies to explain to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency that pseudoephedrine-containing products are safe in the hands of community pharmacists, the small study recently posted on the MHRA website makes for disappointing reading (p541).
Conducted in February in the north east of England, the study revealed
that pharmacists were not as vigilant as they might have been in preventing
inappropriate sales, something that the MHRA — either at the behest
of the police or with the force’s prompting — believes can
only be prevented if these products are switched to prescription-only
status.
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society, correctly, wonders about the quality
of the research (it involved two 15-year-olds buying cough and cold remedies).
This research was conducted before the announcement from the MHRA that
it was consulting
about the switch (PJ, 10 March, p269) but after the
Society issued a Law & Ethics Bulletin (PJ, 27 January, p114) warning
pharmacists about the over-purchase of these products.
Nevertheless, pharmacists should put their houses in order. The pharmacy
press has been reporting developments as the story unfolds, and publicising
the fact that all pharmacy bodies are against the switch. That may not
be enough. With the best will in the world, a Law & Ethics Bulletin,
on its own, is hardly sufficient to change practice or reinforce good
habits. The interested pharmacy bodies should, together, mount a major
campaign to ensure that all pharmacists are aware that they must take
greater care in selling products containing pseudoephedrine or ephedrine
or, for that matter, all medicines that are subject to pharmacy control.
The MHRA has extended the deadline for the switch consultation to 29
June in acknowledgement of the high level of interest in the topic. Even
so, pharmacy bodies are unlikely to have time to conduct their own independent
research and submit it to the MHRA, although they could encourage community
pharmacists to galvanise their customers into opposing the switch.
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Government won't dare hand over NHS
Presumably timed to coincide with the announcement of the departure of Tony Blair, the British Medical Association has challenged the Government to establish an independent board of governors to oversee the management of the NHS. Apparently, Gordon Brown has some sympathy with this idea since it reflects his decision shortly after the 1997 Labour victory to grant the Bank of England independence — which is widely acknowledged to have been a success.
The BMA argues that a board should help keep health ministers at arm’s
length and stop them meddling with the running of the NHS on a seemingly continuous
basis. However, would they ever have the courage to do that? There may be too
much at stake in the NHS both financially and politically for any government
to dare hand it over to a third party. The only hope is that ministers can be
persuaded to stop meddling at a local level and ensure that national policies
are fairly and equally implemented.
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