Legal and Ethical Advisory Service

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The Regulation Directorate provides advice to pharmacists and pharmacy technicians on matters relating to the Code of Ethics and the Society's interpretation of medicines and pharmacy legislation.

In 2008, the Legal and Ethical Advisory Service handled 13,199 telephone calls and responded to 2,121 e-mails and 326 letters. The types of enquiries that the pharmacist advisors can advise on include legislation relating to Controlled Drugs in registered pharmacies, validity of prescriptions, wholesale supplies from a registered pharmacy, the use of restricted titles such as "pharmacy" and other enquiries related to pharmacy law and ethics.

The pharmacist advisors do not advise on contractual or employment legislation and are unable to offer a proofreading service for protocols and standard operating procedures. Where a query falls outside the remit of the Advisory Service, the enquirer will be redirected to the appropriate authority.

Opening hours: 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday

Contact Details:
Tel: 020 7572 2308
Fax: 020 7572 2510
e-mail: leadvice@rpsgb.org

For downloadable information click on the links below:

Fact sheets
Top tips
Law and Ethics Bulletins
Pharmaceutical care of detainees in police custody

Fact sheets

In addition to providing written or oral advice, the advisory service has produced a series of fact sheets for pharmacists, covering areas of practice which are frequently the subject of queries. The fact sheets, including the Patient Group Direction Resource pack, are reproduced here as PDF files. The date each fact sheet was last amended is shown in brackets.

Click on the links below:

• 1. Controlled Drugs and community pharmacy (September 2007)
  For more information on CDs, click here
• 2. Controlled Drugs and hospital pharmacy (see Safer management of Controlled Drugs: a guide to good practice in secondary care, England, which the RPSGB helped develop)
  
• For more information on Controlled Drugs, click here
• 3. The Medicines for Human Use (Marketing Authorisations Etc.) Regulations 1994, and the effect thereof (November 2004)
• 4. The export of medicines (December 2004)
• 5. The use of unlicensed medicines in pharmacy (September 2007)
• 6. Monitored dosage systems and compliance aids (September 2007)
• 7. Patient group directions: A resource pack for pharmacists (July 2008)
• 8. Dealing with dispensing errors (July 2008)
• 9. Confidentiality, the Data Protection Act 1998 and the disclosure of information (superseded by Professional standards and guidance for patient confidentiality )
• 10. Employing a locum/Working as a locum (September 2007)
• 11. Poisons (July 2008)

The Legal and Ethical Advisory Service Fact Sheets on Advertising, Prescription collection, home delivery and repeat medication services and Pharmacy and the internet have been superseded by professional standards and guidance documents which support the Code of Ethics. For further information click here.

Top Tips

Top Tips is a series of publications aimed at providing pharmacists with information in a concise and simple format that is easy to understand. Top Tips will focus on areas that will primarily help community pharmacists in their day to day practice. The idea is that the Top Tips sheets will be a useful resource to print off and put on your dispensary wall for an easy reference guide to help you make the right decision in a busy pharmacy environment.

For Top Tips, click on the link below:

1: The supply of veterinary medicines (POM-V & POM-VPS) on prescription
2: NHS prescriptions for Schedule 2 and 3 Controlled Drugs

The Society is always trying to improve the service we offer members, so please send us any suggestions of future topics for Top Tips to leadvice@rpsgb.org.

Law and Ethics Bulletins

The Society issues Law and Ethics Bulletins to highlight current problems and inquiries relating to the Codes of Ethics and the Society's interpretation of medicines legislation.

Click on the links below:

• Substances liable to misuse (June 2009)

• Changes to emergency supply legislation (May 2009)

• Restrictions on the sale of products containing mercury (April 2009)
  
• The wholesale of medicines to registered chiropodists (April 2009)
  
• Amendments to the Professional Standards and Guidance Documents (April 2009)
  
  
• Updated advice on the use of cough and cold products in children under 12 (March 2009)

• Names and signatures on prescriptions (December 2008)
• Non-medical prescribing and mixing of medicines in palliative care (December 2008)

• Handling medicinal products with similar names (November 2008)
• Expiry dates (November 2008)
• Restrictions on the sale of products containing pseudoephedrine or ephedrine (November 2008)

• Prescriptions issued by EEA or Swiss healthcare professionals will be legally valid in the UK from 3rd November 2008 (October 2008)
• Sales of large quantities of paracetamol (October 2008)
• The wholesale of controlled drugs to registered paramedics (October 2008)

• Employment in Northern Ireland
• Registered pharmacies may not wholesale medicines to holders of a wholesale dealer's licence (August 2008)
  
  
• Child resistant packaging (2) (July 2008)
• Correction to the Professional Standards and Guidance for Internet Pharmacy Services Document (July 2008)

• Multiple packs (April 2008)
• Retrievable audit trail (April 2008)
• Advice on the use of cough and cold products in children (April 2008)

• Restriction on the sale of pseudoephedrine and ephedrine products (March 2008)
• Prescribing of Controlled Drugs by pharmacist and nurse independent prescribers (March 2008)

• Changes to the Controlled Drug register (January 2008)
• Changes to the arrangements for dealing with Controlled Drug requisitions, part II (January 2008)
• Restrictions on the sale of plano (zero powered), cosmetic contact lenses (January 2008)
• Copying of registration certificates (January 2008)

• Changes to the arrangements for dealing with Controlled Drug requisitions (December 2007)
• Change to the status of midazolam on 1 January 2008 (December 2007)

• Update on sale and supply of pseudoephedrine and ephedrine containing medicines (November 2007)
• Correction to page 30 of the MEP Guide concerning the retention of veterinary Controlled Drug prescriptions (November 2007)
• Correction to page 26 of the MEP Guide concerning operating department practitioners and ordering of Controlled Drugs (November 2007)
• Ensuring adequate professional indemnity insurance cover for professional activities (November 2007)

• Legal and Ethical Advisory Service fact sheet changes (October 2007)

• Patients may not legally extemporaneously compound a product that contains a Controlled Drug (September 2007)
• Restriction on sale or supply of pseudoephedrine and ephedrine containing medicines (September 2007)
• Clarification of the "Controlled Drugs in Hospital" section of the medicines ethics and practice (MEP) guide, issue 31 (September 2007)

• Changes to the arrangements for dealing with private controlled drug prescriptions (August 2007)
• Destruction of Schedule 1, 2 ,3 and 4 Part I Controlled Drugs (August 2007)
• New powers for accountable officers and operating department practitioners following changes to Controlled Drugs legislation (August 2007)
• The Society's new powers under the Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians Order 2007 in relation to health (August 2007 - revised version)
• Rest breaks (August 2007 - revised version)
• Child resistant packaging (1) (August 2007 - revised version)
• Metropolitan Police investigations and release of patient confidential data (August 2007 - revised version)
• Administration of adrenaline (epinephrine) in an emergency (August 2007 - revised version)

• Restrictions on the self selection of Pharmacy medicines to remain (July 2007)
• Medication error logs (June 2007 - revised version)
• Gifts and inducements (June 2007)
• Move to introduce stronger penalties for unlawfully breaching patient confidentiality (June 2007)

• Requirement to report matters related to conduct and fitness to practise to the Society (May 2007)
• Corrections to the Denatured alcohol section of MEP (April 2007)
• Restriction on over-the-counter pack sizes of analgesics containing codeine and dihydrocodeine (March 2007)
• Validity period for an owing slip (February 2007 - revised version)

• Changes to the return and storage of waste medicines in Scotland (January 2007 - revised version)
• Methamphetamine - link to cold remedies and reclassification (January 2007)
• Missed doses or collections of methadone (January 2007)

• Approved wording on instalment prescriptions to cover pharmacy closures (December 2006)
• Homoeopathy and malaria prophylaxis (November 2006)
• Licence requirements for the prescribing of cocaine, diamorphine and dipipanone for addiction (November 2006)
• Methadone oral solution (November 2006)
• Preventing NHS fraud (November 2006)
• Restrictions on personal control (November 2006)

• Notification of errors (October 2006)
• Products containing citronella or eucalyptus oil (October 2006 - revised version)
• Sale of paracetamol (October 2006)
• Strychnine no longer approved for mole control (October 2006)
• The Veterinary Medicines Regulations 2006 (October 2006 - revised version)

• Emergency supplies (August 2006)
• Pharmacist supervision and private consultation areas (December 2005)
• Amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations: Guidance for pharmacists (The Pharmaceutical Journal - November 2005)

Pharmaceutical care of detainees in police custody

For guidance on dealing with prescriptions written by forensic physicians for patients in police custody, click on the link below:

Pharmaceutical care of detainees in police custody

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