Listen and learn

Well you know that I love talking to patients and there never ceases to be countless opportunities for pharmacist’s and their staff to counsel patients and make a real difference, for example:
-The patient on a reliever inhaler, who had been prescribed a brown one and didn’t appreciate that she should:
1. Keep using the blue inhaler as a reliever on a prn basis.
2. Use the brown inhaler on a regular basis and rinse her mouth out afterwards.
-The number of patients taking regular simvastatin who are also prescribed a course of erythromycin, and don’t know to temporarily stop taking their simvastatin (well this is the advice of one of the local GP practices and it seems very sensible to me).
-The number of women taking the COC who are prescribed a broad spectrum antibiotic and given no counselling on what to do to avoid potential pill failure.