Blog
UK pharma pilot
News of the UK move to fund a pilot scheme for some 300 pharmacists to be directly employed by GP surgeries has made it to the Australian community pharmacy press. The idea to help manage long-term conditions and provide ongoing advice to patients using multiple...
Return of Unwanted Medicines in Australia
The program to return unwanted medicines to community pharmacies in Australia has been given approval for a further 3 year period. The program will continue to collect and dispose the returned medicines along with an analysis of the items and the research into why...
Doctor Google
Researchers at the Harvard Medical School have released some research to show the potential pitfalls of Googling or otherwise seeking advice online relating to medical conditions. The scientists tested 23 online symptom checkers including many brand name sites and...
Recent examples of counterfeit
It was only last month that at the FDA issued a warning not to purchase Diazepam online due to the potential that the drugs may be counterfeit. There are two issues at the heart of this blog: 1 being the prevalence of counterfeit medication and the second being the...
Channel Race August 2015
Following an inauspicious weather forecast the wind filled in before the start of the Channel Race to a steady 15 – 20 knots south westerly. Lutine enjoyed vying for position at the start with Juno and Palpatine, starting with Artemis on the northern side of the...
FDA crackdown on illegal meds
In May, the FDA in conjunction with international law enforcements agencies enforced a major crackdown on illegal and crackdown medications with action taken against 1,050 websites. Seized products were found to have originated in India, China, Hong Kong and...
The revamp of the TGA
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) are aiming to remove unnecessary duplication in assessing therapeutic goods in Australia where they have been approved elsewhere in the world. New assessment protocols will allow changes to streamline the process and use...
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...