Recent coverage in the Australian community pharmacy press has centred around the benefit and/or potential harm of prescribing and dispensing medicines without a face-to-face consultation. The discussion raised asked the question whether an online questionnaire is appropriate to make a prescribing decision. The topic also spread to buying medicines from foreign sites which of course leads to the potential for purchasing potentially harmful falsified medicines.
This debate is quite relevant to the UK market right now whereby many pharmacists are submitting applications to NHS England for Distance Selling contracts or online pharmacies. The current legislation means this option for application remains an exemption just like the 100 hour pharmacies were before that type of application was removed. The issue being however is that applicants under such rules need to consider (not just this) how to deliver a safe and effective service without face-to-face contact. Given the rule remains an exemption, it seems NHS England believes in the merit of the online model.
However, I receive numerous calls on a weekly basis from people wanting to apply, who have applied, who have been refused and those at the appeal stage . The reality is that the scrutiny these types of applications go through is high and the message, as I see it, is that applicants need to provide as much evidence as possible to ensure they can deliver pharmacy services within the constraints of the applicable regulations. Which brings me back to where we started, perhaps the additional scrutiny is there to safeguard against contractors making commercial decisions ahead of patient-centric decisions.
When I think about it, if I ordered medicines online, I’d want to know my pharmacist goes through the same checks as in the high street pharmacy, potentially I’d like additional checks given the distance between patient and dispenser.
What are your thoughts on the matter? Are there ways to make the process safe?
Do you like the model? Do you think there is a future in the model?
Perhaps you are applying for an online pharmacy and have thought about these issues.
We’d love to hear from you … [email protected].