News

Disulfiram 200mg Shortage

We have received notification of a shortage affecting disulfiram 200mg tablets. The product has recently divested from Actavis to TEVA , who are now advising that supplies are unavailable until April 2017.

Ultibro® Supply Issues [Feb 2017]

We understand that some pharmacies may be experiencing supply issues with Ultibro® Inhaler at present. If your pharmacy tells you they are having difficulty getting through their normal supply routes please advise them of the following:

Alliance healthcare are currently distributing Ultibro inhaler on behalf of Novartis
If a pharmacy has difficulty obtaining supplies through their normal wholesale route they can obtain next day delivery for patients by faxing a copy of the prescription to 02030448996.
Patient details should be blacked out and replaced with the pharmacy alliance healthcare account number.GP name, date and prescription number need to be visible.
Delivery will be direct to the pharmacy on the next working day.

Controlled Drugs: Learning from Incidents February 2017

Issue 6 of controlled Drugs: Learning from Incidents, produced by NECS on behalf of NHS England covers:

Destruction of Controlled Drugs
Examples of suppliers of CD denaturing kits
CD balance checks during external stocktaking
Licensed equivalents for special order CDs

Antimicrobial stewardship: changing risk-related behaviours in the general population (Joint NICE and Public Health England guideline)

This new guideline aims to make people aware of how to correctly use antimicrobial medicines and the dangers associated with their overuse and misuse in order to reduce antimicrobial resistance. It also includes measures to prevent and control infection.

Recommendations made by NG63 cover the following areas:

overarching principles
local system-wide approaches to reducing inappropriate antimicrobial demand and use
local system-wide approaches to preventing and limiting the spread of infection
childcare and education providers
prescribers, primary care, and community pharmacy teams.

Low back pain and sciatica in over 16’s – NICE guideline [NG15]

This NICE guideline covers assessing and managing low back pain and sciatica in people aged 16 and over. It outlines physical, psychological, pharmacological and surgical treatments to help people manage their low back pain and sciatica in their daily life. The guideline aims to improve people’s quality of life by promoting the most effective forms of care for low back pain and sciatica.

What is serotonin syndrome and which medicines cause it?

This Medicines Q&A prepared by UK Medicines Information outlines the causes and symptoms of serotonin syndrome and lists examples of medicines with the potential to cause serotonin syndrome.

Is there evidence to support the use of enteric coated (EC) aspirin to reduce gastrointestinal side effects in cardiovascular patients?

The enteric coated (EC) formulation was developed and marketed in an effort to reduce GI adverse effects associated with aspirin. This Medicines Q&A prepared by NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service reviews the evidence on the use of EC aspirin to prevent GI damage, and the effect of the enteric coating on anti-platelet effect of aspirin.

SNOMED CT to replace Read codes

SNOMED CT is the clinical vocabulary chosen to replace Read codes within the NHS. Coded information that is currently received from GP systems in Read codes will change to SNOMED CT and CCGs need to be ready for this.

The change to SNOMED CT must be adopted by all general practice service providers before 1 April 2018. This will affect those who add or extract data to or from clinical systems.

Medicines Adherence: Supporting patients with their treatment e-learning

King’s College London is re-launching their e-learning course aimed at pharmacists and other healthcare professionals to help patients improve their health through medicines adherence.

The free course, which will take place over a two-week period starting on 30th January 2017, is designed for healthcare professionals, but may also be of interest to those with an academic or personal interest in medicines adherence.