The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7479 p588
24 November 2007

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• Abortion
• NPA PMI bid
• Retention fees (5)
• The Society (2)
• The Council
• Community pharmacy
• Health care regulations
• Medicines distribution
• Ethics
• Locum pharmacy (3)
• Remuneration

Letters to the Editor

Community pharmacy

Non-professional dispensing set a bad precedent

From Mr P. J. Francis, MRPharmS

As I understand it doctors have the legal right to allow non-qualified staff to dispense in surgeries without any checking by the doctor. The doctor is not required to be present in the dispensary when dispensed medicines are given out.

The legality of this was challenged several years ago by a major pharmacy body. The judge decided in favour of the dispensing doctors. The basis of his judgment was that a pharmacy could be owned by a company. The judge appeared to ignore the fact that dispensing surgeries are often also run by doctor-owned companies.

There was, therefore, room to appeal the decision given the double standard applied. The decision was not appealed, leaving the situation whereby doctors can employ anyone to dispense without supervision.

What is the relevance of this to pharmacy? The Department of Health will no doubt have thought that if it is legal for non-qualified persons to dispense unsupervised in doctors’ dispensaries, then there is no reason why the same should not happen in normal pharmacies — and at a fraction of the cost to the DoH. Perhaps it is time to reconsider avenues of appeal of that highly anti-pharmacy precedent.

Paul Francis
Brisbane, Australia

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