Society, law and politics

Pharmacy ‘first ports of call’ are disappearing in struggling communities

A disproportionate number of community pharmacies are closing in the most deprived areas of England, analysis by The Pharmaceutical Journal has found. Without better funding for the sector, the health inequalities exposed by the pandemic could widen even further.…

I often confuse my plain white tablets — shouldn’t they have markings?

I am simply an ordinary patient of my local GP practice. I have several medical conditions controlled by a considerable number of tablet medications of various shapes, colours and sizes. I normally sort these into daily doses for seven days. Today, I noticed my morning intake of tablets w…

2020: the year of COVID-19

This year has been dominated by a single topic. Here, we look back at an extraordinary 12 months, and an extremely challenging time for pharmacy teams.…

Remembering pharmacy staff who have died during the COVID-19 pandemic

As we reach a year since the first cases of COVID-19 were identified in China, we pay tribute to some of the pharmacy staff in the UK who have lost their lives to the infection.…

Women to Watch 2020: what we did and why

In March of this year we launched a nationwide search to find women in the pharmacy profession who were achieving great things and deserved greater recognition.…

Outstanding work of 12 female pharmacy professionals celebrated in Women to Watch 2020 list

Twelve women have been selected for The Pharmaceutical Journal’s Women to Watch 2020 list, which celebrates brilliant, under-recognised female pharmacy professionals who are accomplishing great things across the sector.…

How patient-centred are you? No, how patient-centred are you really?

The views expressed in this letter are those of the author’s. If you would like to submit a letter to The Pharmaceutical Journal, please click here. If I had been asked this question a couple of years ago, I would have answered: “Totally, utterly!” For nearly 20 …

Too often patient concerns over treatment are trivialised or ignored — this must end

Expert patient Andrew Taylor lost a decade of his life to crushing side effects after being prescribed steroids against his wishes, and he was only helped when healthcare professionals started to really listen.…

Medication in contemporary music: what precisely are our patients listening to?

Contrary to popular belief, modern music often references legitimate medications, as well as illegal substances — understanding societal beliefs around drugs can help us help our patients.…

Patients’ perspectives on polypharmacy are highly personal, systematic review concludes

Healthcare professionals should actively seek to understand individual patients’ perspectives on polypharmacy and its challenges, research in BMJ Open has concluded.…