Royal Pharmaceutical Society Leads Call For Original Pack Dispensing

Main Category: Pharmacy / Pharmacist
Article Date: 16 Dec 2009 - 1:00 PDT

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The English National Board (ENB) of Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) is spearheading a campaign which will call for medicines to be dispensed to patients in their original packs.

Original Pack Dispensing could help improve patient adherence and reduce medicines wastage. Currently community pharmacists frequently dispense medicines from manufacturers' original packs when the pack size does not correspond to the prescribed quantity. According to Howard Duff the RPSGB's Director for England, this adds additional steps to the dispensing process.

"The pharmacist needs to provide additional Patient Information Leaflets and may need to "snip" tablets from manufacturers' blisters. We have pledged to understand and address the issue of workplace pressures within the profession, activities such as "snipping" blister packs and finding additional leaflets for patients increase the workload associated with dispensing for pharmacists and their staff."

And adds: "This is also an issue that impacts on patients. The snipping of tablets damages the integrity of the audit trail as batch number and expiry dates may be missing and also means that patients may be provided with odd tablets. We believe dispensing medicines from more than one pack and / or not in original packs may cause more medicines to be wasted and contributes to poor adherence."

To launch its proposed campaign the English National Board has called a meeting of interested parties early next year with the objective of consensus building so that a definitive course of action can be agreed. The meeting, which will be in the form of a working group, will be chaired by Professor Nick Barber, Professor of the Practice of Pharmacy at the School of Pharmacy, University of London.

Howard adds: "Professor Barber's specialisms - medication errors, technology evaluation, and adherence - make him an ideal chairperson". "A wide range of interested parties has been invited to participate in the working group and to join what we believe to be a vitally important initiative for patients and professionals alike."

Source
Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain

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