RE: [e-drug] When is quality and safety assured? (2)

["Carolyn Green" <cgreen@aidsalliance.org>]

E-DRUG:  When is quality and safety assured? (2)
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I think the comparison that Crumpin & Wingfield make is a false one to
some extent, and was not helpful in their article in the Pharmaceutical
Journal.

If dispensed medicines are reissued to patients who have been in
hospital, they receive back their own medicines that they brought with
them from home. The medicines return to the storage conditions at home
that they had been kept in before admission to hospital. They are
checked by a hospital pharmacist before the patient's discharge, and the
patient takes with him/her only those medicines they really need. There
is a concern about storage conditions in the patient's home (there
always is!), but mostly only over a relatively short period since most
medicines are only dispensed for one to three month periods in the UK.

The concern about sending 'left-overs' from one (rich) country to
another (less rich) country is that the medicines go to different
patients, take a long time to get there (often, and in uncontrolled
storage temperatures) and get stored for some time at the destination
before they get dispensed to new patients. Medicines that are in their
original cartons should show an expiry date, but medicines that have
been repacked into dispensing cartons or bottles do not show expiry
dates - there is no requirement in the UK to include the expiry date on
the dispensing label.

Chipupu Kandeke's question is a good one, but not a new one - it just
needs to be asked again from time to time to remind us about the
problems. Drug donations have a lot of disadvantages, and recycled
dispensed medicines from individual patients have more disadvantages
than any other kind of donation!

Carolyn Green, MRPharmS MA
Senior Programme Officer, Care & Support
Care & Impact Mitigation Team
International HIV/AIDS Alliance
UK
cgreen@aidsalliance.org