The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7460 p34
14 July 2007

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National Pharmacy Association plans secret checks on pseudoephedrine community sales

Secret checks on how community pharmacies are controlling sales of products containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine are being planned by the National Pharmacy Association.

The association is about to send pledge cards to all its members, asking them to make five commitments that it hopes will help to stave off the threat to make all such products available only on prescription in order to reduce the likelihood of their conversion to methylamphetamine.

The five commitments are to:

• Make all staff aware of the potential for misuse

• Stop self-selection

• Restrict sales to one pack at a time

• Watch out for unusual requests

• Add guidance to standard operating procedures

NPA head of communications Neal Patel said: “The NPA isn’t content with issuing guidance and hoping for the best. We will be actively testing to see how our activity has changed practice in community pharmacy.”

Questioned by The Journal, Mr Patel refused to say what form the testing would take. “At this stage, we don’t want to reveal that detail,” he said.

Colette McCreedy, the NPA’s director of pharmacy practice, added: “Pharmacy has accepted that the threat of methylamphetamine is real. We want to show Government that community pharmacy has the tools, rules and professional competence to manage this issue. The message isn’t complicated. The implementation of a few simple actions will virtually eliminate the chance of pharmacy-bought pseudoephedrine being used to make crystal meth.”