Hospital Pharmacist
2006;13:109-110
April 2006

109 Consultation begins on Section 60 Order of the Health Act 1999 Consultation on the draft Section 60 Order of the Health Act 1999 is finally under way, following its publication last week by the Department of Health more

109 New guidance on CDs published Help for pharmacists in England to cope with the new arrangements for handling controlled drugs, introduced in response to the Shipman Inquiry, has been published by the Practice and Quality Improvement directorate of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society more

110 New UK and Europe-wide initiatives to combat antibiotic resistance launched Two new initiatives to combat and report antibiotic resistance were launched in March more

110 Pharmacist counselling can reduce adverse drug events, research says Pharmacist counselling can reduce adverse drug events (ADEs) after hospital discharge, according to research more

110 Administrative burden on NHS to be tackled Ways to reduce some of the administrative burden placed on the NHS were set out in the Department of Health's recent “Draft simplification plan.” more

109 NEWS IN BRIEF

Pharmacists, technicians and pharmacy assistants are to receive a 2.5 per cent pay increase from 1 April 2006. The Government has accepted the recommendations of the Review Body for Nurses and Other Health Professionals that nurses and other health care professionals should receive this increase. However, a national recruitment and retention premium called for by Amicus, the union that includes the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists, has not been granted. The pay review report can be accessed as a PDF file (910K).

A networked IT system to improve the on-call pharmacy service, developed at the Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham, has won this year’s First DataBank Europe, Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists information technology award. Projects from pharmacists at the Northern General Hospital, Sheffield and the Christie Hospital, Manchester were highly commended. The winning project is set to be presented at the GHP Interest Group Seminar in Coventry on 26 April.

Mental health law is to change, but not as initially proposed. Rather than going ahead with its draft Mental Health Bill 2004, the Government is now to put forward a shorter Bill to amend the existing Mental Health Act 1983. The Bill will simplify the definition of “mental disorder” and remove the “treatability test”.

A new price list for “payment by results” was published by the Department of Health on 17 March. It replaces that issued on 31 January, which contained errors. An independent review of the tariff-setting process has also been announced.