Blog
Boots and global pharmacy
News made it here to Australia over the 700 job cuts imposed within the Boots head office and support network noting that the job cuts will not be coming from within any retail locations. This news follows the Boots merger with US chain Walgreens and whilst not...
Best practice in action
Just a quick example from South Australia of real-life pharmacy best practice. A Adelaide doctor has been facing court over allegations of forged prescriptions for both Stilnox and Tramadol. Pharmacy staff alerted the police after concerns over the suspicious scripts...
E-Cig laws restrictive to proper research
A leading substance abuse researcher in Australia believes that as long as it is illegal to sell e-cigarettes containing nicotine in Australia the constraint places researchers and smokers in a difficult situation. University of Queensland (UQ) Professor Wayne Hall,...
Regulations in Australia and real life examples
The community pharmacy industry remains heavily regulated in Australia as most of us in the industry believe it should be. In every case, rules are there for a reason and though we know the rules sometimes some of us simply ignore them. Here in Australia, the...
Oral contraceptive and ongoing scheduling
For the time being, the pill will remain as a ‘prescription only’ item here in Australia. This comes after a recent review undertaken by the Advisory Committee on Medicines Scheduling (ACMS). Whilst the possibility of moving the pill to an over the counter medicine...
Fitness to practice….consider your referees!
The GPhC consider a pharmacy professional fit to practice when they can demonstrate the skills, knowledge, character and health required to do their job safely and effectively. They describe fitness to practice as a person’s suitability to be on the register without...
Before you REACH for your CHIPS get the SDS
In a recent case a supplier of biologically active products for clinical trials was reported to the HSE for not supplying Safety Data Sheets (SDS) to their client. Under the CHIP or Chemicals (Hazard Information and Packaging for Supply) Regulations 2002, suppliers...
Internet Pharmacy: Display the Logo or Face a Jail Sentence
As more and more of us are going online to purchase medicines there has been a worldwide growth in the number of internet pharmacies selling counterfeit (falsified) medicines. Oftensuch medicines are...
Free Online Course to Disaster
Yesterday I had a call from a distraught pharmacist who desperately wanted to know how to go about growing his new pharmaceutical wholesaling venture which he had set up with a friend. Our conversation went as follows: Caller: “We have applied for a MHRA...
When Europe acts as one but isn’t joined up.
For pretty much the whole of the last six months the team at PCL have been trying to make headway with certain issues thrown up by the EU Guidelines on GDP for Medicinal Products for Human Use (5th Nov 2013). On face value it is hugely helpful that there are common...
Old Man Rant #1 (yes sorry there will be more than one)
Whilst not the best English Scholar (just scraped through Lang’ and Lit’ O’levels) I seem to be getting increasingly grumpy about current trends with language. Years ago trends and fashions we dictated by music, whether it was Mods and Rockers in the ‘60s or punks the...
Preventing Fake Medicines Entering the Supply Chain
In the developing countries, poor healthcare infrastructure and a high demand for medicines has led to a proliferation of criminal gangs specialising in the counterfeiting of drugs. In the UK there have been several incidents of falsified medicines entering the NHS...