Community pharmacists move to standardise practice
The Community Practice Pharmacists Association (CPPA) is working on adopting guidelines that will help standardise the practice of the profession by all its members.
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Consequently, the association has published a book: “Guidelines for Community Pharmacy Practice”, to serve as a manual for all its members to follow in the course of their practice.
Currently, the association is carrying out a sensitisation programme to create awareness of the existence of the manual and the need for members to use it to guide their daily activities as pharmacists.
The first sensitisation programme has been held in Accra for CPPA members to help improve the quality assurance system to ensure patients’ safety.
Similar ones will be held for the Central and Western regions in Takoradi; Brong Ahafo and Ashanti in Kumasi; Volta and Eastern in Koforidua, and Northern, Upper East and Upper West in Tamale.
Need for uniformity
The Chairman of the CPPA, Mr Charles Allotey, said the training programme was aimed at having a standard to guide the provision of pharmacy services for the community.
He explained that even though the Pharmacy Council was in charge of the regulatory activities, the CPPA had taken upon itself to regulate itself to ensure that the right thing was done.
He said what the CPPA was doing was to engage in a peer review mechanism in order to help each member to achieve what was expected of each pharmacist.
The association, he added, also wished to see to it that the law that set out the provision of pharmacy services was adhered to in order to ensure that clients of any pharmacy were assured of safety.
Mr Allotey said the association was working to assist the council to identify those who were not doing the right thing to be dealt with.
Role of pharmacists
With regard to pharmacists prescribing medication to patients, he said the role of a pharmacy was to help identify those for whom simple pain killers could address their conditions and refer those who needed further treatment to the appropriate health centre.
“The pharmacy is the first port of call for the community. The presence of a pharmacy helps identify those who need to go to hospital. Our role is to look at the people coming, see those people who simple pain killers will do for them and those who really need further investigation,” he explained.
Mr Allotey further explained that the duty of the pharmacy was to make sure that people were not just given medication but were also advised or counselled as to whether they needed further checks.
He, however, explained that the law permitted the pharmacist to provide medicine for a disease of common occurrence, such as malaria and diarrhoea, if it was uncomplicated.
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