Onus on pharmacies to safely display P medicines
Practice GPhC advises full risk assessment before self-selection is allowed
Pharmacy owners must conduct risk assessments and give full consideration to staff views before putting P medicines on open display, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has said.
The GPhC stressed that each individual pharmacy must take precautions to ensure P medicines could be safely put out for self-selection, in its first set of proposals on managing the issue, published on Wednesday (November 20).
The draft framework put a clear onus on owners and superintendents to ensure safety standards were consistently maintained, ahead of P medicines being allowed into open display areas. Self-selection was due to be allowed next year, but the GPhC said it could no longer commit to that timeframe (see box, below).
|
Owners and superintendents will have to notify the GPhC of their decision to openly display P medicines and conduct a "careful and thorough" assessment of the risks involved |
 More on P medicine self-selection
|
|
Owners and superintendents will have to notify the GPhC of their decision to display P medicines in advance and ensure they conduct a "careful and thorough" assessment of the risks involved in each of their pharmacies. Such an assessment should take into account the local level of misuse of medicines, national guidance on high-risk medicines and staff skills. |
Chief pharmacists clash over P meds self-selectionThe GPhC said staff were an important part of the decision-making process. It set out requirements for "full and open communication" with employees to discuss the effective supply of P medicines.
Superintendents and owners must also give "full consideration" to levels of training and the skill mix in the pharmacy, the GPhC said. Not only must there be enough staff present to supervise sales, but they must receive training to manage inappropriate requests, it stipulated, adding that staff might need communications training to deal with "difficult interactions".
Putting P medicines on open display should not cause any slip in standards, the regulator argued. It emphasised that pharmacists should still feel empowered to talk to patients about their choice of medicine and be confident in refusing supply if necessary.
|
If pharmacies failed to comply with medicines supply standards, the GPhC stressed it would have a "full range" of enforcement powers, including closure. GPhC chief executive Duncan Rudkin acknowledged that there were a "wide range" of views on P medicine self-selection, including high-profile opposition from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and Pharmacists' Defence Association (PDA). "We want to participate in and contribute to this debate so we can all work together to make sure patients receive the best possible advice about their medicines," he pledged. The draft framework would fuel discussions with individuals and representative bodies over the coming months, the GPhC said. The proposals were released on Wednesday (November 20) and contractors are still considering the details. But PDA chair Mark Koziol branded the guidelines "naive" and doubted employee pharmacists would realistically be able to sway decisions on P medicine self-selection. "That relationship between employee and employer would have to be one that empowers individual pharmacists to make professional decisions in the interests of patients, and that doesn't exist to anything like that extent," he told C+D. Read Duncan Rudkin's blog on continual assessment. |
When will P medicine self-selection be allowed in pharmacies?We don't know yet. Self-selection for P medicines was due to be allowed from next year, but the GPhC has encountered a fresh hiccup in getting the legislation agreed. The GPhC reported at its last council meeting on November 14 that the Department of Health (DH) and Scottish government had encountered a "number of challenges" in the legislation. This included the "very unusual" requirement for wider premises standards themselves, which include the plans to allow P medicine self-selection, to be set out in legal terms. The GPhC now expects the DH to launch a consultation on the legislation in early 2014, with the aim of getting it agreed by the end of the year. But the GPhC warned this would take more time to translate into actual powers, and could not commit to its work being finished before 2015. |
|
How could P medicine self-selection work in your pharmacy? Comment below or email us at [email protected] You can also find C+D on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook |
