RPET n the Edinburgh International Conference Centre provided
rmacy sector within Scotland and a great networking most influential professionals in attendance. Hosted by onour those pharmacists and their teams who are defining Pharmacist Award winners reflect the industry’s r status within the wider healthcare arena. The ceremony once again highlighted that community pharmacy is rising Pictured on these pages are some of those who attended.
CONTENTS NEWS
4 NES Pharmacy says work still to be done in independent prescribing NEWS IN BRIEF
elia McQueen, Katrina Forth, Ian Fotheringham, Valerie Fotheringham, Douglas Mitchell and Paul Pollock
6 RGU Pharmacy students discover that Smarties have the answer
NOvARTIS ANd GSK cOmPLETE TRANSAcTIONS
Novartis have announced at the end of last month that it has completed a series of transactions with GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK), including the acquisition of certain oncology products and pipeline compounds from GSK, the creation of a world- leading consumer healthcare business through a joint venture that combines the two companies’ consumer divisions, and the divestiture of the Novartis non- influenza Vaccines business to GSK.
and Gillian Douglas
8 Shona Robertson confi rms commitment to maintain free prescriptions James McKeever and Neeraj Salwan
10 Rebalancing medicines legislation and regulation
The transactions were announced in April 2014 as part of the Novartis global portfolio transformation. Since the end of 2013, Novartis has engaged in a series of transactions to sharpen the company’s focus on three core business segments with global scale: innovative pharmaceuticals, eye care and generics. As a result of the most recent announcement:
• Novartis Oncology now manages a portfolio of 21 oncology and hematology medicines to treat more than 25 conditions worldwide. Newly-acquired therapies in melanoma, renal cell carcinoma and hematology complement Novartis Oncology’s existing group of practice-changing medicines to create a large portfolio of drugs in oncology and hematology targeting important biological disease pathways.
nd Jess Gilmour
14 As we enter Spring season, ensure your training is updated in Hayfever management
Gemma Winkler and Ross Hill
• Based on the depth and breadth of the Novartis Oncology R&D and commercial capabilities, it is anticipated that Novartis will be able to optimize the therapies acquired from GSK. These include: n Tafinlar®, a BRAF inhibitor, and Mekinist™, a MEK inhibitor, both approved for the treatment of metastatic melanoma. On February 6, 2015, GSK announced overall survival results from the COMBI-d trial which demonstrate a statistically significant reduction in the risk of death (Hazard Ratio [HR] 0.71 [95% Confidence Interval (CI): 0.55, 0.92], p=0.011) for the combination of Tafinlar and Mekinist compared to Tafinlar monotherapy in patients with BRAF V600E/K mutation- positive metastatic melanoma.
n Votrient®, a VEGFR inhibitor for renal cell carcinoma, which has shown significant efficacy as first-line treatment for renal cancer.
18 Alliance CPD fi rst in a series of articles 22 Scottish Pharmacist Awards – we present the winners
n Promacta® for thrombocytopenia, Tykerb® for HER2+ metastatic breast cancer and Arzerra® in chronic lymphocytic leukemia are also included in the transaction.
d Paul Budris John Connolly and Paria Kordbachech
38 All the glamour direct from the red carpet at Edinburgh International Conference Centre
kkie Carla Bertolaccini, Nismith Nathwani and Elise O'Donnell
40 Pharmacist role in effective Diabetes Care 42 Aberdeen researchers gain funding to examine medication errors 50 How to use Social Media to best effect for your Pharmacy business
Lisa Semple, Kathryn O'Malley and Susan McDill
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Scottish Pharmacist is published in association with: Community Pharmacy Scotland 42 Queen Street Edinburgh EH2 3NH Tel: 0131 467 7766 Fax: 0131 467 7767
Chairman Martin Green
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Chief Executive Offi cer Harry McQuillan
SCOTTISH PHARMACIST - 3
Board Members Iain Cavanagh Ian Cowan John Currie
Eleanor Fairbairn Colin Fergusson Fraser Frame Alan Glauch Karen Gordon Martin Green Alan Harrison Alasdair Macintyre Elaine Robertson James Semple Catriona Sinclair
Only Smarties have the answer Gluten Free Service Review
Student Laura-Anne Riach, 23, took part in the challenge and devised a number of techniques to help her remember to take her ‘daily dose.’ She said, “The first week of the challenge was the hardest as I forgot to take the Smarties on time. Almost every ‘dose’ was either late or completely missed.
Kataezyna Rodrew and Claire Hyslop
“I had to do something to remind me to take them so for the second week I used a dossette box and had it sitting in the kitchen. The visual reminder really helped with taking the Smarties on time.
Matthew Harding and David Guest
Third year RGU Pharmacy students Ray Ore and Laura- Anne Riach
Robert Gordon University (RGU) Pharmacy students recently gained a valuable insight into the challenges patients face when following a course of daily medicine by taking part in a unique challenge.
More than 100 third year students participated in ‘A Smartie a Day’ challenge which required them to take one chocolate Smartie a day for four weeks to experience what it’s like fitting daily medication in to their normal routines.
More than 2,600 Smarties were distributed to the 107 participating
students before the Christmas holidays which had to be taken an hour before eating food.
Initial feedback from the exercise has suggested that many students found remembering to take one on time every day proved difficult for a number of reasons.
“However, the final week was the most successful. I decided to swap the Smarties with something I really dislike, so I opted for mini Bounty bars. The thought of having to eat one each day was enough of a reminder and I didn’t miss one.” Alyson Brown, lecturer in Pharmacy Practice, worked with colleagues from RGU’s School of Pharmacy and Life Sciences to deliver the exercise.
She said, “We’ve never set the students this challenge before so it was interesting to see how they reacted. It has been an insightful exercise which has allowed them to experience ‘taking medicine’ from the patient’s point of view.
“Pharmacists understand patients can have a low level of adherence when it comes to taking daily medication, and it’s important to encourage students to think about the challenges they may face.”
RPS response highlights pharmacy role
Community pharmacies should be viewed as a local community public health resource, ideally placed to provide healthy living interventions and messages to the population as a whole to prevent ill health or detect early.
it Nigel Cumming, Maxine Gault, Angus Roberts and Phil Gault
This is one of the key messages to come out of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in Scotland’s published response to the Scottish Government’s public health review chaired by Dr Hamish Wilson.
‘Providing a holistic approach to care, with a more streamlined approach to signposting such as ensuring all pharmacies are utilising the ALISS project (A Local Information System for Scotland),’ the response adds.
"Pharmaceutical public health has great untapped potential to improve lifestyles, encourage self-management and champion preventive measures. This could contribute significantly to improvements in patient outcomes. We need to focus resources where they are most required and build an evidence base for the contribution the
• Public health roles should be expanded and become an integral part of all pharmaceutical care services such as the Chronic Medication Service and integrated appropriately into all routine interventions, with a national strategy to raise awareness of public health priorities.
• To gain maximum impact the poster campaigns in community pharmacies should be coordinated with a wider multidisciplinary approach in other healthcare outlets and with more general population messages through social media to encourage public ownership and participation.
• Prescribing and demographic data now provides evidence down to patient level which can be interpreted using the pharmaceutical expertise of the public health pharmacists to
profession can make,” says RPS’s Practice & Policy Lead, Aileen Bryson. The response highlights current pharmacy contributions to public health and makes recommendations for where pharmacy’s role could be expanded including:
identify gaps in service provision and variation in practice. Pharmaceutical Care Plans (PCPs) can now access health data which allows services to be targeted at the areas of greatest need, tailoring resources to the specific public health priorities in local communities.
• In a similar way to GP contracts, resource to pharmacies should be flexible to reflect the level of deprivation and the demographics in the local population.
• Health and Social Care Integration provides an opportunity to improve public health. This needs to focus on person centred care and getting things right first time for patients, providing coordinated local support and improving health education and prevention, rather than infrastructure and co-location.
• A coordinated, national, multidisciplinary approach with standards and specifications is essential to ensure equitable access to some specialist public health services such as substance misuse.
The early months of this year have given opportunities for CPS to highlight the important role the community pharmacy network plays in delivering NHS services to patients. CPS has been asked to contribute to the Scottish Government’s Out of Hours Review which was announced on the 30th of January. I am determined that the vital contribution of community pharmacy teams across Scotland is recognised and further developed to support service provision for patients. I have also highlighted to other stakeholders the need to link out of hours care with work for Prescription for Excellence.
During the extension it was agreed that a review of the service would be conducted to assess how successful the trial has been in terms of improving clinical benefit for appropriately diagnosed patients, cost effectively by comparison with the previous arrangements plus any other impact on participating parties.
The review is being conducted on behalf of the Scottish Government by Margaret Ryan of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Part of the review incorporates surveys of patients, pharmacists and GPs.
The pharmacists and patients survey is available for completion between the 3rd of March and the 31st of March. Pharmacists wanting to complete the online survey can go to
https://www.surveymonkey. com/s/GFF-APS-CP.
Paper copies of the patient survey have been circulated via Tactical Media but they can also access the survey online via
https://www.surveymonkey. com/s/GFF-APS-Patient.
It is probably helpful that pharmacists ensure their patients are made aware of the survey at their next order of gluten free food. The GP survey will be carried out during April 2014.
Operationally the service seems to be progressing well. Pharmacists seem to find the lack of electronic prescribing solution being the biggest service hassle and the pharmacist survey does recognise this with a question around this.
The other complaint from patients is one around the formulary used in NHS Lothian.
Pritesh Raghavani, Grant Kubrim, Samantha Roads, Bernard Stottelaar and Malcolm Clubb
BLOOD PRESSURE BODY FAT HEIGHT WEIGHT BMI
Steve Anderson, Harry McQuillan and Chris Frost Michael Currie and Keith Dickson Ali Mahboba, Vick Ranjib and Naveen Randeehul
March saw the return of the Scottish Pharmacist Ball and Awards. I’d like to take this opportunity to again congratulate all the nominees and award winners. A special acknowledgment is also warranted for the winner of the outstanding contribution to pharmacy award. I know Rose-Marie Parr was a popular winner and many of those who attended the awards have commented that she was a very deserving recipient.
In december 2014, it was announced by the Scottish Government that the Additional Pharmaceutical Service supporting pharmacists supplying Gluten Free Food to registered patients was to be extended until September 2015.
Steve Anderson and Chris Frost
It is clear that NHS Lothian have been much more restrictive about the products being made available on the scheme and some patients have been put off about switching from the historic GP prescribing by the lack of flexibility of product selection.
The review is also seeking views from stake holder organisations. It is anticipated the final report will be handed to the Scottish Government by summer 2015.
After then decisions on the continuation of the service will be made.
WELCOME Karen and Peter Duff SP pages 6-7_Layout 1 30/03/2015 11:08 Page 2 Ken Sutherland, Hazel Sutherland, Pete Cross, Carrie Cross, David Guest, Matthew Harding NEWS
DO YOU HAVE A WEIGHING MACHINE IN YOUR PHARMACY?
With a Keito health monitor you could offer your customers the following aditional services from as little as £5 per week:
Finally, the attention of CPS falls to negotiations for the community pharmacy contract for the coming fi nancial year. The negotiating team has already held several meetings with numerous Scottish Government and Health Board offi cials. We remain committed to ensuring that negotiations deliver a fair return for all parties.
Narinder Aggarwal, Neeraj Salwan and Harry McQuillan
Harry McQuillan Chief Executive Offi cer Community Pharmacy Scotland
Julia Hodgson, John and Diane Ward
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