In an email dated Wed, 26 May 2004 9:46:30 am GMT, Colin Brown <[log in to unmask]> writes:
>Jeff pointed us to:
>
>A few extracts from
>http://www.pharmj.com/Editorial/20040424/society/statcomm.html#2
>
>where I also found:
>"In the final instance, a patient with a prescription for three days’
>supply of methadone, requiring to be dispensed on 21 October, arrived at
>the pharmacy too late to collect it and returned the following morning.
>Mr xxxx dispensed the full three days’ supply, entering it in the
>register as having been dispensed on 21 October. He explained that he
>had done this because it had been made up on 21 October, which was true.
>What he should have done, said the chairman, was refuse to dispense at
>all for the three days and send the patient back to his doctor to secure
>a new prescription."
>
>No no no.
>
>Have these bureaucrats in the Pharmaceurical Society's Statutory
>Committee any idea of the Kafka-esque hassle their zealous
>interpretation of the discredited MDA rules, freely mixed in with other
>"Good Practice Guidance" which has no force of law at all, and a
>bludgeon of mis-interpretation from officious ex-traffic-cop local
>constabulary - does to the morale of front-line workers trying to
>prescibe and dispense methadone?
>
>The chairman's view would result in a much longer interruption to a
>regime where stability is of the essence, and a wholly unnecessary
>encounter with the practice. The users's lateness does not require
>further punishment of him, nor any of the doctors.
>
>Prescriptions have a start date, but no end date, I believe.
>
>
>Colin Brown
>
Methadone/subutex scripts written to be dispensed daily usually have a start date.
If an addict misses a couple of days then their drug tolerance falls and the previously OK dose may cause severe/fatal effects.
I don't know how long the patient failed to pick-up but I reckon referring back to the prescriber if he missed a couple of days (by the pharmacist at least) is good practice.
--
Roger Gardiner
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