Leyla Hannbeck, head of pharmacy at the National Pharmacy Association, discusses three topical queries

Question

Is it a legal requirement for a child’s age to be written on a prescription?

Answer

For a prescription-only medicine, it is a legal requirement for the age to be written on a prescription if the child is under 12 years of age. If this is not stated, pharmacists cannot add it themselves. It would be advisable to return the prescription back to the prescriber for them to write this on to ensure the prescription is legally valid. This requirement does not apply to EEA prescriptions.

Question

Can I put controlled dosage system?

Answer

There are no legal restrictions preventing a pharmacist from dispensing a controlled drug (CD) into a monitored dosage system (MDS). It would be up to the pharmacist’s professional discretion to decide whether or not a CD could be put into an MDS compliance aid. As with all medicines dispensed into an MDS, the pharmacist would need to be satisfied that the drug remained stable and pharmaceutically active.

If an MDS contains a CD that requires safe custody, the MDS drugs into a monitored would have to be kept in the CD cabinet until collected by the patient/representative or before it is delivered to the patient. However, shortage of space in a CD cabinet may make this impractical and the pharmacist should consider dispensing any MDS containing CDs when the patient/representative comes to collect the medication or just before delivery.

Question

What criteria should I use if I choose to perform a test inspection?

Answer

The NPA Pharmacy Services toolkit, ‘GPhC inspections: a show me, tell me story’ includes a ‘How am I doing?’ section for each principle, which should be used in conjunction with the self-assessment grading tool. Pharmacy owners and superintendents are invited to inspect their pharmacy from the inspector’s perspective and/or from the patient’s perspective. All processes that take place within the pharmacy should be reviewed to see how patients are accommodated, or how services are provided safely.

There may be instances where the pharmacy does not provide the exact example detailed in the guidance, but is still able to accommodate patients. For example, an induction (hearing) loop may not be available in the pharmacy but a member of the pharmacy team may be able to use sign language (although consideration would have to be given to provision when that person was not available).

NPA members can download these resources by visiting http://www.npa.co.uk/gphc-inspection.