Not in the script!

Here’s just a few examples of interventions I have made with patients this week (who ever said that community pharmacy is only about counting tablets and selling hairsprays – we continue to be a vital part of patient care!):

1. The patient who came in with a script for his existing antidepressant therapy, plus a new script for fluoxetine. I was expecting to either have a conversation with him about stopping the existing antidepressant and starting the fluoxetine, or about taking them both together (this happens a lot round here). What I wasn’t expecting was the patient to ask if his new ‘antihistamine’ was a good one and to have no idea about a change to his antidepressant therapy. So rather than try and sort this one out over the phone the patient went back to see the GP, and came back with another script for an antihistamine and with the knowledge that the GP did want him to take the two antidepressants together.

2. The carer who came in with a hospital script for a new client with schizophrenia. The antipsychotic was to be labelled ‘1 TDS for signs of anxiety’, and the procyclidine was to be labelled ‘1 TDS prn for extra pyramidal side effects’. So we wondered if the carer would know what these side effects were, and she didn’t. She also didn’t know that these side effects would be caused by the antipsychotic hence the need to take the two drugs together should these side effects arise. So we settled on labelling the procyclidine ‘1 TDS prn for side effects due to antipsychotic’ and explained exactly what EPSE were.

3. The patient prescribed the recently launched drug for obesity and had only been told by the GP that it was ‘very expensive’. So I filled her in on the rest!