Advice to contributors

See New procedures for publication of contributions (25 June 2005)

The Hospital Pharmacist publishes articles, reviews, reports and papers about any aspect of hospital pharmacy.

General requirements Material for publication in the Hospital Pharmacist should preferably be submitted electronically as e-mail or on diskette in a text-only format accompanied by a print-out. If electronic submission is not possible, material should be typewritten in a form suitable for scanning (high-quality, black print on one side of the paper). Material should be e-mailed to hospital.pharmacist@pharmj.org.uk or sent to

The Editor, The Hospital Pharmacist
1 Lambeth High Street, London SE1 7JN

Submissions must be accompanied by the name and address of the sender and a daytime telephone number.

Declaration of interest Submitted articles, papers or letters should include a declaration of any financial, commercial, personal or occupational interest that readers should know about.


Letters to the editor
Hospital Pharmacist welcomes letters from readers in response to any material published, and on other relevant matters of interest to hospital pharmacists.

Letters can be posted, faxed, or e-mailed to hospital.pharmacist@pharmj.org.uk and should not normally be of more than 400 words. Hospital Pharmacist reserves the right to abridge them. Pharmacist correspondents should supply their membership numbers. A contact telephone number should always be supplied.

The use of pseudonyms will be permitted at the discretion of the editor but only in exceptional circumstances.

Letters are considered for publication on the understanding that they have not also been submitted elsewhere. Where letters are critical of individuals, organisations or companies, details of the criticisms may be sent to the person or body concerned so that their response may appear in the same issue as the letter. In such cases, authors’ identities will not normally be disclosed.


News items Short reports of matters of general interest can be sent to hospital.pharmacist@pharmj.org.uk

Meeting reports The Hospital Pharmacist will consider contributed reports of meetings of pharmaceutical relevance. Reports should comprise accounts of the principal points made by speakers and any interesting points made during discussion. Lists of topics discussed and running orders are of no interest. Authors should speak to the editorial team in advance (020 7572 2425/2419) to discuss The Hospital Pharmacist's requirements. Reports will only be published in the issue following the meeting, and authors should find out the editorial deadline before attending the meeting. Reports can be sent to hospital.pharmacist@pharmj.org.uk

Future events Details of future events of interest to pharmacists are published in The Hospital Pharmacist whenever possible. The Hospital Pharmacist cannot guarantee publication of any particular announcement. Future events can be sent to hospital.pharmacist@pharmj.org.uk

Papers and articles Hospital Pharmacist welcomes original papers to be considered for publication. Contributors are asked to note that, in common with many other biomedical publications, Hospital Pharmacist requests that structured abstracts be submitted for original research papers.

Papers reporting original research or describing developments in clinical, scientific, practice or technological fields will be peer-reviewed

Manuscripts
Manuscripts can be emailed or posted to the editorial office

Authors should retain one copy of all material; the editor cannot accept responsibility for loss of, or damage to, manuscripts. Manuscripts should conform to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’s “Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals” (see www.icmje.org; shortened version, Ann Intern Med 1997; 126:36-47).

Statement
Papers must be accompanied by a statement that they have not been and will not be published elsewhere, except by prior agreement with the editor. All authors must sign for their consent to publication.

Title page
A separate title page should give the full names of the authors, their posts at the time the work was carried out and their major degree and professional qualification. An address for correspondence should also be provided.

Abstracts
Abstracts of research papers should not exceed 250 words and should be structured under the headings: Aim; Design; Subjects and setting; Outcome measures; Results; Conclusions.

Statistics
Statistical procedures should be described in the methods section or be referenced.

Units of measurement
Units of measurement should generally be expressed as SI units, except for blood pressure, which should be expressed in mm Hg.

Names of medicines
Names of medicines should generally be given as generic names.

Ethics
Authors of papers concerned with human trials should indicate in the text that protocols have been approved by an ethics committee. Sources of financial support should be acknowledged.

References
References should be numbered in the order in which they appear in the text. A full list of references should be given at the end of the article. The names and initials of all authors should be given unless there are more than six. In this case, only the first six should be used followed by et al. The authors' names are followed by the title of the article, the journal title, the year of publication, the volume and the first and last page numbers. Journal titles should be written in full. For example:

1.  Hepler CD, Strand LM. Opportunities and responsibilities in pharmaceutical care. American Journal of Hospital Pharmacy 1990;47: 533-43.

References to books should give the names of any editors, the place of publication, the publisher and the year. For example:

2.  Edwards C, Stillman P. Minor illness or major disease? Responding to symptoms in the pharmacy. 3rd ed. London: Pharmaceutical Press; 2000.

Personal communications should be cited in the text only. This also applies to papers in the press, unless they have been accepted for publication, when the journal name should be followed in the listed reference by the words "in press". Authors are responsible for checking the accuracy of their references.

Tables
Tables should be separate from the text of the paper. They should be kept as simple as possible and should not be ruled.

Figures
Graphs should be submitted with their data as they may be redrawn. Pie charts and histograms will usually be converted to tables.

Photographs
Photographs should be of the highest quality possible and may be submitted as prints or slides, preferably in colour. Contributors are asked not to send images via ISDN or e-mail without telephoning first.

Copyright
With the exception of certain government employees, all authors will be required to transfer copyright to The Pharmaceutical Journal. Readers may make single copies of articles for their personal use. Permission should be sought from the editor to make multiple copies or to republish material.