Scrubbing Up: Your comments

In this week's Scrubbing Up, David Pruce, of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, argues that it is time to give pharmacists some help as they are facing an increasing number of challenges without any increase in staffing.

Here are some of the comments you have been sending in to this week's Scrubbing Up.

My pharmacy collects my repeat prescription from the surgery, dispenses it and I just pick it up and sign the back of the prescription as I have a prepayment certificate. But one of my pills comes in packs of 30, and I get prescribed 56 at a time so they end up cutting up the strips - ludicrous! If they just gave me 60 at a time, after a year, they could just give me one strip of 30. AND they pick up on mistakes by the GP - one told me to take eight tablets a day for five days, and prescribed 28 tablets.
Anne, Surrey

A relative of mine had a medicines' review from the pharmacist. The pharmacist was able to advice on medicines that can be stopped. They spoke with the patients GP and a total review was completed to the benefit of my relation and surely to the NHS, as money must have been saved and the complexity of their treatment reduced. The pharmacist also recommended more advice on her pain control, their knowledge of medicines helped greatly. Surely this must contribute to using their skills more effectively, especially if the "normal" dispensing service can be maintained. They can be a community service greatly under used by patients, when we seem to be over working GPs with questions when a pharmacist could help!
Anon, York

My daughter is a pharmacist - she has been constantly hounded by her employers as she cannot provide them with enough MUR's each week owing to lack of time. The pressure she has been under has been enormous, so she handed in her resignation - and will now be doing the same job but as a locum. This will mean she will not be under the same kind of pressure. The industry loses many experienced pharmacists each year because they are overworked and under pressure - and it's time that this situation was brought out into the open.
Linda Howse, Trowbridge

So "Pharmacists are rightly paranoid about accuracy" are they? Well, counting out the right number of tablets should be the core part of their job but I would express this by saying they should be concerned about accuracy, rather than "paranoid" which means something completely different. I'm sympathetic to the plea to have technology support mundane tasks. I'm not sympathetic to pharmacists' claims that they are more expert about using medicines than are doctors. I work in a hospital and we don't get any "advice" from pharmacists there. Being a pharmacist is an important but boring job and I advise anyone with enough intelligence to consider a different healthcare related profession rather than ending up as frustrated as the author of this article.
Dave Curtis, London

So "pharmacists are rightly paranoid about accuracy" are they? Well, counting out the right number of tablets should be the core part of their job but I would express this is saying they should be concerned about accuracy, rather than "paranoid" which means something completely different. I'm sympathetic to the plea to have technology support mundane tasks. I'm not sympathetic to pharmacists' claims that they are more expert about using medicines than are doctors. I work in a hospital and we don't get any "advice" pharmacists there. Being a pharmacist is an important but boring job and I advise anyone with enough intelligence to consider a different healthcare related profession rather than ending up as frustrated as the author of this article.
Dave Curtis, London

I am a retired pharmacist with 50 years experience of most branches of pharmacy. General practice pharmacy is now in the hands of the multiples which often means a rotation of pharmacists working at the same pharmacy with no personal interest in the business, and so the old personal relationship with patients/customers is lost. Compare this to the French system where there are only individually owned pharmacies with the same pharmacist there over many years. Technology could certainly help with dispensing, once again many French pharmacies now have automated picking and delivery to the counter, no interference with original packs no cutting and loss of expiry dates. When are we going to wake up and invest in our pharmacies so that there will be time for a pharmacist to meet the patients once again gaining their confidence?
Colin Thomas, Worthing

I am a pharmacist working in a medical admissions unit in a busy hospital. I routinely see patients whose admissions have been the result of prescribing errors or misuse of medication. The role of the pharmacist here is extremely important and recognised as adding value to patient care, but due to the NHS having to cut spending we are finding that we don't have the resources to expand this- which is a huge shame.
Rachael S, Berkshire

ePrescribing help improve patient safety because it reduces the number of transcriptions (and thereby reduces the chance for error whilst reading or re-writing/entering the prescription); ePrescribing can also save time, reduce waste and be linked to IT systems that monitor patients' reactions to the drug or medicine being administered. There are however a host of IT systems now available for pharmacists in hospitals and the general community that can provide additional 'decision support', enabling hharmacists to protect patients and improve their safety by detecting and avoiding dangerous drug interactions and/or allergic reactions to chemical compounds within prescription medicines. Your article states that 5% of admissions are related to adverse effects of medicines; to provide improved patient protection, prescriptions issued within hospitals and on discharge can also be linked and the information collected in an electronic patient record to inform future patient healthcare. This is not science-fiction, I work for a British company selling these systems to the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia, today.
Simon Mehlman, Manchester

I believe pharmacists are the most important part of the medical team. They tell you about the precise side effect of medications, while doctors do not bother about it. They desereve everything they want.
Wali, Northolt

Good article, pharmacy needs to evolve and move away from non-patient manual tasks to providing a quality professional intervention concerning patients' medicines. The growth in number of prescriptions now being processed in pharmacies will one day cause a real safety concern for patients. Therefore we need to automate dispensing (as they do in America) as soon as possible so we don't cause an unnecessary risk to the patients wellbeing in the future.
Mark, Exeter

The services provided by pharmacists are superb and safe. The additional services now offered by many pharmacies are within the competence of those providing them but, unfortunately, not funded at a level where adequate staff can be employed to release the pharmacist to provide them without a degree of interruption to the core dispensing services offered.
David Kent, United Kingdom

It is mistaken to believe that taking prescriptions electronically will help either patients or pharmacists. The system it is intended to introduce effectively allows no change from the prescription as produced by the prescriber, yet research shows that 12.5% of community prescriptions and 9% of hospital prescriptions contain errors - against which pharmacists provide an essential safety net. What is needed is spending on more properly qualified people so that existing staffs are not so overworked.
Bob Gartside, Llanberis, Wales

Great to see that this issue is finally being recognised. Now for some action by the RPSGB.
R Hadland, Heswall

I agree completely pharmacists are doing a good job. However the role of the pharmacy technician also needs to be included in this kind of report. Pharmacy technicians working on wards spend a large portion of their time checking medication history against medication that is prescribed on admission and highlighting any problems found directly to the prescriber or the ward pharmacist.
Dawn Howell, Hanley Stoke-on-Trent

As a pharmacist myself, I wholeheartedly agree with David Pruce. What we need is a strong membership organisation that is focused on pharmacist's welfare, professional development and integration into the primary care team as an equal partner. Over to you and the new Professional Leadership Body, David.
Shaun Hockey, Bedale

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