The chemist and druggist, 18/25. December 2010 (issue 6778)

Dispensary talk Will involving local authorities in public health be good news for pharmacy? "It may well be a benefit as local authorities also have knowledge of the area - so with their involvement it could help pharmacy, but only time will tell' Patricia Ojo, Day Lewis, Bromley, Kent "Yes, but it will make things more complicated as it will mean introducing another tier for pharmacy." Cylab Chauhan, Malvern Pharmacies Croup, Malvern Web verdict Yes, it will give us someone new to influence |§9H 18% It probably won't make much difference No, it makes life more complicated " 51% I'm not sure yet j 11% Armchair view: Less than 20 per cent of C+D readers said local authorities' new role in public health will be good for pharmacy. Over half fear it will make life more complicated. Next week's question: How was 2010 for you? Vote at www.chemistanddruggist.co.uk Calls for transparency as errors plague pricing NHS Prescription Services 'leaves contractors in the dark' Zoe Smeaton zoe.smeaton@ubm.com Pharmacists are being "left in the dark" about prescription underpayments and should demand more transparency from paymaster NHS Prescription Services, a contractor has said. Graham Phillips, of Manor Pharmacy (Wheathampstead) Ltd, Hertfordshire, was underpaid for expensive items in July and August 2010 and sought an apology. Mr Phillips complained about the lack of transparency in the initial responses he received from NHS Prescription Services. "Your standard reporting procedures leave us entirely in the dark as to what went wrong; what has been done to prevent recurrence and any meaningful details at all of the nature of the errors," Mr Phillips wrote. He told C+D: "It seems like they are wantonly avoiding transparency in their reporting process." In one example, Mr Phillips had been paid for only one tin of Pepti Junior, despite filing separately a prescription for 12 tins. "We're spending hours and hours filing prescriptions in more convoluted ways and it's not working," he said. John D'Arcy, managing director at Numark, said he understood contractors' frustration. "When you're dealing with complaints procedures, lack of transparency isn't something that would usually feature," he said. Denise Hebron, customer service manager at NHS Prescription Services, offered Mr Phillips "sincere apologies" for the errors, saying they had been human, not systemic. An NHS Prescription Services spokesperson told C+D it offered contractors "a high level of explanation" of adjustments for under- and overpayments. One in 20 contractors asked for further detail, the spokesperson added, "which we are happy to provide". Clinical debate C+D's Chris Chapman looks at the evidence behind the headlines Should labels be harder to read? Labelling, it turns out, is a can of worms. Following on from the Pandora's Box of whether antibiotics should be labelled by times (a debate that's still raging on p16), another angle on how we label medicines has cropped up - from a pretty unexpected source. In a blog post on kooky mind- botherer Derren Brown's site last week, one of Derren's helpers raised an interesting point on fonts. Essentially, it discussed an experiment where various fonts were used to convey information, finding that participants retained more information when it was conveyed in a hard-to-read font. You may think this is a moot point - labellers aren't known for their range of fonts, after all, and medicines labels need to be read by everyone, including the short- sighted and those with dementia. But changing how medicines are labelled is something that's been discussed by the NHS. A study for Connecting for Health looked at whether applying 'Tall Man' lettering to commonly mixed-up drugs could cut down errors. Instead of the normal lettering, the drugs got capitals in the middle - turning into carBIMazole and carBAMAZepine. The accuracy of selection was then analysed. It was found that the Tall Man variant increased accuracy of recognition, and increased name perception, though when it came to minimising errors there was no significant difference. Overall, however, the study's authors recommended using the Tall Man variant across the NHS for drugs that look or sound alike. So where does that leave pharmacy? Still a little in the dark, I suppose - more research would be needed. That said, once again labels raise an interesting question. Would patients benefit from having their labels written in Comic Sans? And would Tall Man help you while dispensing? Let me know what you think. Chat with Chris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CandDChris or email chris.chapman@ ubm.com i 18.12.10