Friday 3 September 2010

Getting what you want

The Rolling Stones taught us that you don't always get what you want. And what pharmacists think they want when it comes to supervising the safe use of medicines might might not be the right place to start.

This week, Graeme Stafford shows how deciding what you want to achieve can have ramifications for the future that were never intended, particularly if the motivation is self-interest. The first pharmacies were owned and managed almost exclusively by male pharmacists. They decided to protect the financial interests of their widows and families. What they might not have intended was that future ownership could extend well beyond their families. Did they ever envisage that multinational corporations, for example, should be able to own pharmacies? As Mr Stafford points out, that is exactly what they made possible.

So it might be a good idea to remember that the point of supervision is to protect the public, not to ensure that pharmacists have jobs or a particular type of job. If public protection demands pharmacists in the process, which in one role or another it almost certainly does, then the profession will have a bright future.

Delivery of The Pharmaceutical Journal Distribution difficulties mean that readers of The Pharmaceutical Journal can expect to receive their copies a little later than normal, on Monday/Tuesday next week.

Michael Thompson
Editor, PJ Online

News this week

Changes proposed for emergency CDs for European visitors
Financial pressures halt MHRA plans to put product information online
Pharmacy advice findings "applicable across world"
Scottish diabetes plan calls on community pharmacists
UK medicines legislation being consolidated

Clinical news

Antivirals safe in first trimester
Ivabradine beneficial for heart failure patients
Pandemrix might cause narcolepsy
UKCPA diabetes group warns about withdrawal of Mixtard 30 insulin
Wider window for alteplase use does not delay treatment

Read - and comment on - all our news online

How to...

. . . guarantee uninterrupted access to PJ Online - in three weeks, membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and registration as a pharmacist will become separate matters. If you are a member of the Society, full and unlimited access to PJ Online is free of charge. Just make sure that your profile is updated with your membership details.If you choose to discontinue your Society membership, you will need to take out a subscription to PJ Online.

Article of the week

Problematic widows: supervision and unintended consequences

In a third article in our series on supervision, English Pharmacy Board member Graeme Stafford explains why a paradigm shift is needed in the profession's thinking on supervision.

He argues that the principles of clinical governance, individual responsibility and quality improvement should be the guide, not a preconceived desired end-point.

He illustrates his argument by showing how the desire of the founders of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to protect the financial interests of their widows led to companies, rather than pharmacists, running more than half of the pharmacies in the UK and the current trials of vending machine-style prescription collection points by a supermarket.

Pharmaceutical Care Awards

If you ran a pharmaceutical services-based project last year and want to blow your trumpet about it you have just two weeks left in which to enter for the Pharmaceutical Care Awards 2009 jointly sponsored by PJ Publications and GlaxoSmithKline.

Judging will be carried out by a panel of national representatives from a range of pharmacy sectors comprising Catherine Duggan, Terry Maguire, Jonathan Mason, Harry McQuillan, Cath O'Brien, Linda Stephens and Martin Stephens.

The finalists' entries will be converted to posters and teams will be invited to present their posters at an event to be held in London on 18 November 2010.

Learning and Development

Care and advice for contact lens wearers

It is believed that the idea of the contact lens came from Leonardo da Vinci and it took over 300 years before the concept was realised, in the form of a piece of blown glass that covered the whole white of the eye. Corneal contact lenses became available in 1936. By 2008, contact lenses were worn by around 3.5 million people in the UK. Pharmacist and optometrist Marvyn Elton discusses contact lens care, eye health and drug-lens interactions.

If you have any questions after reading this article, you can Ask the expert until 20 September.

Fever and febrile convulsions in a child

All children will have feverish illnesses but some may also experience a febrile convulsion. These most commonly occur between the ages of 18 months and three years and about 3 per cent of children have a febrile convulsion before their sixth birthday. This case study from the BNF for children investigates some of the issues involved.

Are you ready...

... to tackle head lice?

September is back-to-school month, heralding new stationery, school uniforms and a likely influx of parents to your pharmacy concerned about young itchy heads.

So we have updated our Are you ready section to help you ensure that head lice need not be yet another worry for parents who have enough on their plate. 

And don't forget that you can always find resources to help you prepare to assist people with other enquiries by taking a look at our Are you ready... section for previous topics.

Comment and opinion

Are specials suppliers profiteering?
Carl Scheele, unlucky pharmacist
Chemists in the art world
Ivabradine in the Daily Mail & Express
Members at the core of everything it does
Mistpouffers and other strange sounds
The olm and the secret of long life
Where to draw the line?

Do you agree with our writers? You can discuss these views on PJ Online.

Visit PJ Careers to search for your perfect job

Missed your issue of the PJ?

See all live vacancies from the past three weeks and apply online at www.pjcareers.com.

You can upload your CV and set up job alerts that notify you when a job matching your requirements has been posted to the site.

PJ Careers will help you find your perfect job.

And finally...

... this weekend the Royal Pharmaceutical Society launches its new brand, which includes a revamped approach to both image and behaviour. In three weeks, the Society will be freed from the restrictions imposed on it by its regulatory function and will be able to put its members first in its thinking.