News in English (Other Media)

Trials of a new non-emergency telephone number for healthcare services — which will eventually replace the NHS Direct telephone service — began in the north east of England today (23 August 2010)

Medway School of Pharmacy has come within the top five institutions in a Higher Education Funding Council for England survey of student satisfaction

Guidance to help clinicians transfer patients from Mixtard 30 to other biphasic insulin preparations following its discontinuation at the end of 2010 (PJ, 26 June 2010, p625) has been developed by UK Medicines Information

Clinical trials and hospitals are beginning to use higher doses of mesalazine for ulcerative colitis

Work-based foundation degrees to support those working in the bioscience and pharmaceutical industry and other industry sectors are being developed and are expected to be available from September 2011

The desire to travel and to experience a new culture has led a pharmacy student from the University of Nottingham to spend a semester studying at the university’s Malaysian Campus

Lloydspharmacy has teamed up with Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust to provide a joint preregistration programme that gives trainees experience of both community and hospital pharmacy

A quality framework that underpins the new pharmacy contract in Scotland is to be developed. In plans to improve the quality of primary care in Scotland, outlined today (19 August 2010), NHS Scotland says it will work with independent contractors on proposals for ensuring that all contracts are better able to support the delivery of quality care, and will work with Community Pharmacy Scotland and others to introduce the quality framework

Uptake of NHS smoking cessation services has increased by over 10 per cent in the past year, according to the latest statistics from the NHS Information Centre

Mixing of medicines does not only take place in palliative care, where it is common to give two or more drugs via a syringe driver. The practice is much wider, taking place in respiratory medicine (eg, bronchodilators, steroids and antibiotics might be mixed for administration by nebuliser), dermatology (eg, topical preparations are mixed) and many other areas

It is quite likely that, unless they left school in the past 10 years, few readers will have benefited from formal IT lessons and have had to pick skills up ad hoc

The Department of Health and the National Assembly for Wales have agreed to allow “no cheaper stock obtainable” (NCSO) endorsements for the following, for July 2010 prescriptions

Supply issues / Discontinued products / Counter products

Products reviewed are

Acnisal; Meted; Pentrax; Cardura XL; Macrobid; Triptafen; Zapain; Penindione; Minims metipranolol; Mobic; Movaelat; Protirelin; Staril

Membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society should be opened up to non-pharmacist scientists and researchers working in pharmaceutical science, a symposium has decided

Drug company representatives will be banned from giving stationery, coffee mugs and other promotional aids such as computer accessories to pharmacists and other health professionals, under proposals to revise the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry’s Code of Practice

When two corticosteroid asthma inhalers were compared in a real-life setting, the lower dose one was equally or slightly more effective than the higher dose one, a trial has demonstrated. The findings are published online in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (9 August 2010)

Community pharmacists have been officially alerted about how to manage drug users who use the legal high Ivory Wave, which has the same health risks as ecstasy and amphetamine- type drugs

Guidance on the use of markers on patients’ care records, which alert NHS staff to the risk of physical violence or aggression, has been issued by the NHS Security Management Service

Pharmacists are paying the price of inadequate regulation of premises and subsidising technicians’ fees, according to the Pharmacists’ Defence Association

Intensive glycaemic therapy to reduce microvascular complications in people with established type 2 diabetes who have, or are at risk of, cardiovascular disease, is not recommended, according to an analysis of the ACCORD (action to control cardiovascular risk in diabetes) trial