Brenda Drew

Dear Rachael C Griffin RE: Brenda Anne Drew Deceased Thank you for your letter dated 10th December 2019 following the recent inquest into the death of Brenda Anne Drew: We would Iike to express our sincere condolences to Brenda Anne Drew's family: As you may know the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS') is the professional body for pharmacists and pharmacy in Great Britain, representing all sectors of pharmacy: Our role is to lead and support the development of the pharmacy profession: We transferred our regulatory role to the General Pharmaceutical Council ('GPhC in 2010,and they now regulate pharmacy and pharmacy professionals in Great Britain. Their contact details are: General Pharmaceutical Council, 25 Canada Square, London, E14 SLQ, phone: 0203 713 8000 and email: info@pharmacyrequlation org: You may wish to contact them separately if you haven't already done so. We understand the matters of concern which you have raised and are keen to assist where we can; Our observations on the concerns you have raised are as follows: Guidance for pharmacy teams Your letter recommended we produce guidance for pharmacists covering requests for prescriptions to GPs and we would to confirm that we published guidance in this area in 2015. copy is included with this response_ Our is for pharmacy teams and covers the points raised in the report: There are sections on consent, pharmaceutical care and audit trail. The section on pharmaceutical care describes good practice: All people the services are provided with high quality pharmaceutical care and can use their medicines safely and effectively People using these services (particularly delivery services) are more likely to have little, if any, personal contact with the pharmacy team or other healthcare professionals: maybe housebound, disabled or elderly but deserve the same high quality pharmaceutical care provided to others To achieve this consider: Confirming with patient or carer whether the medicines are needed before re-ordering Whether the medication prescribed is still clinically appropriate at the time of supply and the risks of not supplying Whether a direct conversation, or face-to-face contact with the patient or carer is needed Whether there are adherence or compliance issues When providing a repeat medication management service , the pharmacy team should take care to order medicines using an interval that takes into account the risk of prescribing changes, appropriate quantities, time for the clinic to process a request and a responsive service for patients Checking that you have the correct contact details for the patient or carer. will continue to help raise awareness and to encourage continuing and further adoption of the guidance by pharmacy teams Patron: Her Majesty The Queen Chief Executive: Paul Bennett like guide using They the We

ROYAL PHARMACEUTICAL 66 East Smithfield T 0845 257 2570 support@rpharmscom SOCIETY London ElW 1AW 020 7735 7629 WWW rpharmscom An electronic copy of the guide is available from our website https ILwww_rpharms com /resourcesltoolkitslrepeat-medication-management RPS Prescribing competency framework We updated and published a Prescribing Competency Framework for all prescribers in 2017 in collaboration with all prescribing professions across the UK This framework sets out the competencies expected of all prescribers to support safe prescribing and one of the competencies covers repeat medicines. Competency 7 prescribe safely states: Minimises risks to patients by using or developing processes that support safe prescribing particularly in areas of high risk (e.g. transfer of information about medicines, prescribing of repeat medicines). Our framework is available here https ILwww rpharms com/resourceslframeworkslprescribers-competency-framework Guidance published by other pharmacy bodies The GPhC has also produced guidance on consent that could be applied to the ordering of medicines. This states: Pharmacy professionals have a professional and Iegal duty to get a person 'S consent for the professional services, treatment or care provide, and for a person'$ information. https IIwWWpharmacyrequlation ora/sites/defaultiileslin_practice_ quidance on consent mav2017 Opdf Thank you for bringing this to our attention and hope our response has been helpful: