It will not be 'emergency' contraception then...or will it?
My understanding is that when we use the word 'emergency supply' in this case, we mean a determination of emergency between the healthcare professional and the patient. Both determination should happen for an emergency supply to happen.
Supplying hormonal contraception ahead of actual emergency will not qualify because the determination of emergency is made exclusively by the patient without the healthcare professional. There is however a term for that: It is called 'delayed prescription'.
I am not even going to get into the moral conundrum that this suggestion conjures up.
Can we even stretch that to include 'emergency' supply of other drugs as well?
Surely this question is allo about the moral conundrum? Perhaps it could be avoided were we able to sell regular contraception after a consultation and provide one cycle only before referral to the GP?
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Usually when this presents itself in a pharmacy, the pharmacist would use their professional judgement as to what to do, as sometimes the person is not in need of the EHC, it may be that they don't fully understand how the pill works or timelines.
I read on bbc news there will be a consult with a nurse for 15 mins before this supply could be made by post, but as you said above what would 'emergency' mean to the person? I think without our insight and knowledge it may be used wrongly, and I would like to know how thorough that consult actually is!
So for me its a not sure - I think i would have to know how much the patients are told in the consult before I made up my mind! :S
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Surely this isn't being made as an emergency supply - after all, the patient isn't being charged, there's presumably no POM book entry, etc. It's more like the painkillers we sell before people have a migraine or inhalers we dispense before patients have an asthma attack. It's an advance supply, yes, but pharmacists supply plenty of things in advance, and the Society doesn't disallow the advance supply of EHC at any time of the year.
I wonder if it would help if the price of EHC were to come down, since part of the draw of this must be the fact that patients are saving money. It seems strange that the wholesale price of the P version is roughly 2.5x that of the POM version, given that they contain the same ingredients.
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'emergency' contraception
It will not be 'emergency' contraception then...or will it?
My understanding is that when we use the word 'emergency supply' in this case, we mean a determination of emergency between the healthcare professional and the patient. Both determination should happen for an emergency supply to happen.
Supplying hormonal contraception ahead of actual emergency will not qualify because the determination of emergency is made exclusively by the patient without the healthcare professional. There is however a term for that: It is called 'delayed prescription'.
I am not even going to get into the moral conundrum that this suggestion conjures up.
Can we even stretch that to include 'emergency' supply of other drugs as well?
It's NO NO from me...
There are times when you just have to say No (paraphrasing the PM in Europe / http://iforg.com/blog/?p=695).
Kazeem Olalekan
Moral Conundrum
Usually when this presents
'Emergency supply' seems a red herring
Surely this isn't being made as an emergency supply - after all, the patient isn't being charged, there's presumably no POM book entry, etc. It's more like the painkillers we sell before people have a migraine or inhalers we dispense before patients have an asthma attack. It's an advance supply, yes, but pharmacists supply plenty of things in advance, and the Society doesn't disallow the advance supply of EHC at any time of the year.
I wonder if it would help if the price of EHC were to come down, since part of the draw of this must be the fact that patients are saving money. It seems strange that the wholesale price of the P version is roughly 2.5x that of the POM version, given that they contain the same ingredients.