Are membership fees are too high?As a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) and the Faculty I have recently renewed my membership at a total cost of £192 plus £75, respectively. The fee is too high and is not comparable to other professions. Although the Royal College of Nursing fee, at £196.35, m…
Obtaining consent from patients is not always straightforward How do you obtain consent when the patient is unable to give it?…
Number of smokers using NHS services to quit halves, report finds The number of smokers who quit smoking through the NHS Stop Smoking Service will halve in England in 2014–2015, according to a UCL report.…
Healthcare professionals urged to share information about patients’ medicines Information about a patient’s medicines should be shared by health and social care staff when that person moves from one care setting to another, urges new guidance.…
Community pharmacists support new medicine service, research suggestsCommunity pharmacists generally support the new medicine service because they think it will benefit patients, according to new research.…
Dissecting forensics: review of an exhibition A new exhibition, ‘Forensics: the anatomy of crime’, at the Wellcome Collection, London, aims to examine the forensic procedure from the crime scene to the courtroom. Emma Page takes a look.…
Employ more hospital pharmacists to roll out seven-day NHS in Scotland, says RPS Gaps in pharmaceutical care in hospitals at weekends can’t be filled with existing staffing and resources, says the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.…
Manchester to get full control of its health spendingHealth and social care services in Greater Manchester are preparing to break away from centralised control, following a devolution settlement with the UK government.…
Prescription charge system doesn’t make senseI was interested to read that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has called for wholesale reform of the NHS prescription charge system ( The Pharmaceutical Journal 2015;294:189). I was surprised to read that 36% of community pharmacists, GPs and nurses think that the current system i…
Caution needed with different strengths of medicinesI would like to highlight a risk I have encountered with “specials” medicines. My newborn daughter was discharged from hospital with a bag of medicines, including furosemide liquid 5mg/5ml and spironolactone liquid 10mg/5ml. When my husband collected a follow up prescription from our loc…