A manufacturer has apologised for failing to alert pharmacists to changes to its products' codes after Numark flagged up the problem.

Manufacturer 3M amended the codes for its Cavilon range of barrier ointments on January 1, and Numark head of information services Gary Choo told C+D the organisation had received a “large number of calls” from pharmacists this month with queries about whether the products had been “discontinued or disallowed”.

3M told C+D on Wednesday (January 21) that it had communicated the product code changes to clinicians and wholesalers “several months” in advance. But it had failed to “explicitly request” that wholesalers related this information to pharmacies, which it admitted was "clearly an oversight”.

The manufacturer said it “wished to apologise for any inconvenience and interruption to dispensing" caused by the new product codes. 

Mr Choo stressed that the product code changes had “not been well communicated” and had “confused a good proportion of pharmacists”. Numark had even had to reassure a concerned patient that the Cavilon range was still available, he said.

Mr Choo urged manufacturers to inform pharmacists of any code changes in advance instead of “after the event”. “Manufacturers make what seem to be straightforward changes, but have no consideration for the impact on pharmacists and ultimately patients,” he added.

Earlier this month, PSNC and the NHS Business Services Authority agreed that prescriptions dispensed in January that contained the old Cavilon codes would be accepted. Contractors would need to ensure that prescriptions written after this date contained the correct codes, it added.

3M said that prescriptions with the old codes received after January 31 should be returned to the prescriber to be amended.

The new codes for the Cavilon Durable Barrier Cream range are:

How else could manufacturers improve their communictaion with pharmacists?

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