LegaL Line
A FEAR
OF THE
MEDIA SAVVY
The news, and the skews, in the national media
NEW?
Consultation has been launched on online
prescribing. Take the opportunity to contribute to
better understanding, says Nicole Ridgwell
The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has just launched a consultation on
changes to their 2015 guidance for pharmacy services provided on the internet
or at a distance. The consultation runs until 21 August 2018, and I strongly urge
all such providers to contribute.
Significantly, the consultation’s tone is one of concern rather than
collaboration. In the introduction, it states that GPhC ‘are increasingly
concerned about the way some services appear to undermine the important
safeguards that are in place to protect patients from accessing medicines that
are not clinically appropriate for them’.
There is much of note within the consultation and providers must consider
the detail to appreciate the potential consequences. For example, the
consultation advises that ‘a good pharmacy service will verify the patient’s
identity so that the medicines are right for the patient’ – within itself, wholly
unarguable, but how to verify? I have seen a provider criticised for not contacting
a service user’s NHS GP, where the service user had explicitly refused consent.
Also in the consultation, ‘We believe that there are certain categories of
medicines that may not be suitable to be prescribed and supplied online unless
further action is taken to make sure that they are clinically appropriate for the
patient’. The list includes:
n antibiotics
n opiates and sedatives
n medicines for mental health conditions
This would have a potentially huge (and hugely financially damaging) impact
on the sector, if providers are not prepared. The consultation’s timing and sector
scrutiny is unsurprising. A cursory Google search brings up numerous cases in
which service users died or were seriously injured after taking inappropriately
prescribed medication. Many involve individuals who, for whatever reason, did
not divulge their full medical history to an online prescriber. This is of course a
risk with prescribing in any environment, but regulators argue that there are
greater inherent safeguards in the traditional face-to-face interaction with a GP.
Providers will highlight the safeguards that have already been built into online
service provision and that current criticism is more a reflection of fear of ‘the new’
(and the financial impact on ‘the traditional’) than any legitimate concern. It will
always be the case that new approaches encounter suspicion and scrutiny; it is to
be expected. This is not the time for the sector to stick their fingers in their ears
and merely hope that regulators will learn to trust them soon.
Providers should instead treat t his consultation as an opportunity; to
demonstrate their willingness to engage, to explain their safeguards, to
demonstrate their procedural safety and their rationales. It is the absence of
understanding which is more likely to engender fear and retaliation. I therefore
urge providers – take this opportunity to allow the GPhC to understand you.
Nicole Ridgwell is solicitor at Ridouts Solicitors, www.ridout-law.com
Consultation at www.pharmacyregulation.org
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
WHATEVER VIEW OF THE CANNABIS
ISSUE IS TAKEN – and The
Independent has always been open-
minded and pragmatic in its belief –
the medicinal use of cannabinoids is
a narrower and more straightforward
matter. Hospitals and GPs, by
analogy, already make use of opioids,
real and synthetic, both as painkillers
and as heroin substitutes for certain
addicts. It is something that is
happening every day and, on
balance, is something that has
relieved human suffering. Even the
most militantly conservative sections
of opinion shouldn’t challenge those.
Yet cannabis oil, a far less hazardous
potion than the opioids, has
provoked a moral panic as only the
British are capable of.
Independent editorial, 18 June
THE PROBLEM with these rancorous
but sterile arguments for and
against legalisation and
decriminalisation is that they divert
attention from what should and can
be done: a sustained campaign to
persuade people of all ages that
cannabis can send them insane.
Patrick Cockburn, Independent,
25 June
YOUNG PEOPLE WHO TAKE DRUGS at
music festivals are only victims once
they die. Until then they’re criminals,
and know it… To change this, all we
really need to do is care about drug
users before they die, rather than
only afterwards.
Hugo Rifkind, Times, 4 June
A SMART GOVERNMENT
would decriminalise
milder [cannabis]
variants for those over
21, and make skunk a
class A drug… While
decriminalisation is the
policy of the Liberal
Democrats and the
aptly named Greens, even
Jeremy Corbyn, that doyen
of Glastonbury, hasn’t
adopted it for Labour. Legalisation
will come eventually. The
demographics of age make it
inevitable. No one under 60 who
isn’t a Tory MP believes that non-
skunk cannabis is a serious menace.
Already, a plurality of those polled
favour its licensed sale. The margin
will grow with natural wastage until
the electoral maths make even the
Mail’s opposition irrelevant.
Matthew Norman, Independent,
3 June
FOR A GENERATION obsessed with
all things ethical, isn’t it unethical to
buy drugs when there’s so much
baggage surrounding the trade?...
with cocaine use on the rise in
Britain – an estimated 3.6p per cent
of millennials took the drug last
year, well above the EU average –
this is one area where young people
clearly have a moral and ethical
blind spot. As a millennial myself, I
find my generation’s complicity hard
to stomach.
Tomé Morrissy-Swan, Telegraph,
14 June
IT IS THE THOUSANDS of selfish
people, with more money than
sense, who buy illegal drugs and
sustain the whole great stinking
heap of wickedness which they bring
into being. They should be made to
be ashamed of themselves, and to
fear the law, made for the benefit of
all, which they callously break.
Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday,
17 June
July/August 2018 | drinkanddrugsnews | 17