Empowering you to meet regulatory and best practice requirements

The Superintendent Pharmacist’s Office team work in collaboration with others in the Support Office during the development of all pharmacy systems and look for ways that we can enhance patient safety. We aim to embrace the benefits that technology can bring and we work to design new processes to maintain, or where possible, improve our high patient safety standards.

Assisted Due Date Dispensing (ADDD) is a great example of how through technology both efficiency and safety can be enhanced, helping pharmacy team members to spend more time improving the health of patients and communities.

ADDD uses barcode scanning in combination with enhanced stock provision from Alliance Healthcare and a new design of dispensary workstation. It has been ‘live’ now for over 16 months and has been extended to over 500 stores; the pharmacy teams of which have collectively dispensed more than five million items using the new system. Through analysis of PIERS data, we can see that the system-led dispensing and accuracy checking of ADDD reduces reported incidents and we are now working to develop further system changes to help to extend these types of benefits to more stores.

A number of queries have been raised by team members in stores that have recently been supplied with the WockAIR^® (budesonide/formoterol) 160mcg/4.5mcg dry powder inhaler (DPI) to be dispensed against generically written prescriptions for budesonide 200mcg/formoterol 6mcg DPI. Historically, the preferred product to be supplied was Symbicort^® 200/6 Turbohaler^®. (Please note that there is also WockAIR^® 320mcg/9mcg DPI available, which delivers the same therapeutic dose as the Symbicort^® 400/12 Turbohaler^®).

It is important to note that WockAIR^® 160mcg/4.5mcg DPI and Symbicort^® 200/6 Turbohaler^® are bioequivalent and deliver a therapeutic dose of budesonide 160mcg and formoterol fumarate dihydrate 4.5mcg per inhalation. The NHSBSA Directory of Medicines and Devices (dm+d) details budesonide 200 micrograms/dose / formoterol 6 micrograms/dose dry powder inhaler as a Virtual Medicinal Product (VMP) against which both Symbicort^® and WockAIR^® (as well as other brands that are not listed on Columbus) as Actual Medicinal Products (AMP) may be supplied against a prescription.

Please be aware that a patient switching from Symbicort^® and receiving a WockAIR^® device for the first time will not be eligible for enrolment on the NHS New Medicine Service (NMS) but should be advised of the change and counselled on using the new device. 

Further information on the WockAir^® device can be accessed here.

As you are aware, there are various products available on prescription that require reconstitution before use and each of these have different reconstitution requirements. It is important to read the product information and follow the reconstitution instructions in full. Some products can be reconstituted using tap (potable) water; however others require a specific type of water for reconstitution, e.g. CellCept^® 1g/5ml powder for oral suspension, which should be reconstituted with purified water, meaning tap water cannot be used. Please note that bottles of ‘Purified Water’ can be ordered from Alliance Healthcare.

A copy of the latest edition of the Pharmacy Helpdesk Clinical Focus, covering medicines with a narrow therapeutic index and those considered ‘high risk’, accompanies this edition of The Professional Standard. This and previous editions (covering Emergency Hormonal Contraception, Veterinary prescriptions and signed orders and isotretinoin and retinoid prescriptions) including the podcasts, can also be accessed on BootsLive.