News

Maloff Protect (atovaquone/proguanil hydrochloride) antimalarial tablets now available to buy from pharmacies

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has reclassified the antimalarial Maloff Protect (atovaquone/proguanil hydrochloride) to make it available from a pharmacist without a prescription.

Maloff Protect will be sold at pharmacies after a discussion with the pharmacist. They will be made available to adults aged over 18, weighing more than 40kg, travelling to areas affected by malaria and where the malaria parasite is not resistant to the Maloff Protect ingredients.

GP Management of Infections Survey

Public Health England (PHE), in collaboration with the RCGP, would like to invite you take part in a survey to identify which conditions you would like to see more evidence for management in your daily clinical practice. The survey takes 7 minutes to complete and your response will be used to determine where research is needed and to inform guidance development.

Future Enhancements to Electronic Prescription Service – NHS Digital Survey

NHS Digital are asking users about future enhancements to the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS).

For example, would you prefer private prescriptions or personally administered prescriptions to be included in EPS first and would you prioritise adding an alert about urgent antibiotics to the script over automatically cancelling all outstanding repeat dispensing regimes when a patient leaves your practice?

The survey should take around 10 minutes to complete depending on your answers. Please share this with others in the practice as NHS Digital need to know what people in different roles think.

NHS England launches action plan for consultation on eliminating wasteful and ineffective drug prescriptions to save NHS over £190 million a year

Public consultation is being launched on new national guidelines for CCGs on medicines considered of low priority for NHS funding. Guidance states 18 treatments, including homeopathy and herbal treatments, cost taxpayers £141m a year, should generally not be prescribed.

Can patients on levothyroxine take sea kelp?

Medicines Q&A from NHS Specialist Pharmacy Services:

The term kelp can refer to a variety of brown sea weeds. The iodine content in kelp products varies considerably, even between products of the same brand. Hypo- and hyperthyroidism disorders have been attributed to the use of kelp products. UK and American resources caution or advise against the concurrent use of levothyroxine and kelp products. Kelp products should be avoided in patients suffering from thyroid disorders regardless of whether they are taking thyroid supplementation.

Which medicines could cause problems for patients during a heatwave?

This Q&A from NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service discusses the issues that need to be considered for patients during a heatwave, including the storage and adverse effects of medicines.

The new and improved BNF app

Following the recent launch by the publishers of the BNF of a new, faster, easier to use and access BNF app, the current NICE BNF app will be withdrawn later this year.

For the first time, adult and child BNF content is available through a single app. This provides ease of use and saves space on your device. Those working in health and social care can download and use the app for free. The app is fully portable and you don’t need an internet connection to use it. This means that the BNF’s guidance is available at the point of care in a digital format.

Useful information for Community Pharmacists on the Prescription Tracker

Can’t find a prescription?

We’ve had feedback that patients feel like they’re “caught in the crossfire” when an electronic prescribing goes missing and they feel like they get bounced between the practice and the pharmacy.

The prescription tracker should be the solution to this problem:

Before you contact the GP practice or send the patient back to the surgery, remember you can now use the prescription tracker to search for an electronic prescription. The prescription tracker allows you to check the status and history of electronic prescriptions.

If the prescription cannot be found, then at that point please contact the GP Practice.

Help reduce repeat prescribing waste – Report via SIRMS

To make it easier to identify and investigate waste in the repeat prescription ordering process, we’ve added a specific field with a yes/no dropdown to SIRMS that will highlight where waste has occurred in repeat prescribing systems.

This will help us to run reports and investigate incidents relating to waste. We’ll look at all the incidents and where necessary put steps in place to prevent this happening again.