The College of Optometrists

Does anybody have an accurate list of the specially exempt P meds that can be sold in practice without a pharmacist present. Some of them do not seem to be in the optoms Formulary. I keep getting conflicting answers from different people?

There aren't any.

At present P meds cannot be sold except under the supervision of a pharmacist.

In an emergency, ALL P meds can be sold - so you can stock 'em all and hope that emergency turns up before they expire (or before the law changes) if you like.

I was told by a B & L rep that the law had changed from the 1st of April 05 and that the 'emergency' requirement has now been removed.

That slipped in quietly!

In fact the change occurred on 7th April.

All P meds can now be sold.

John - just browsing from nettalk (pre reg questions usually much more complicated than qualified - quite scary really!)

Where are the details of this sneaky bit of legislation - if it slipped past you how on earth are the rest of us supposed to have spotted it??? Could you post more details on nettalk please?

Go to assoc-optometrists.org and open the pdf entilted "MHRA new legislation for optometrists from April 2005" in the Therapeutics section.

Why this important change has not been more widely disseminated is rather strange, I agree.

It may interest the discussion board to access the following link

http://medicines.mhra.gov.uk/inforesources/saleandsupply/optometrists.htm on

the MHRA website. It details the Exemption changes that occurred some 3 weeks ago,on the 7th April. I too must have missed the huge fanfare in the optical comics.

Also Once Chloramphenicol becomes a P, you should have no problem whatsoever having your patients access it, either from yourself or from the pharmacist.

An interesting aside is that until the GOC are able to create the new register for optometric access to level 2 and optometrists than becomes accredited to go on it, there will be a period of time where no optometrist (outside of a PGD or

similar) can use Pilocarpine or Atropine (as they have been moved to level 2). Nothing devastating but intriguing.

As you will note however, we can now access Fucidic acid (or Fucithalmic) as

a POM. Anyone with young kids who have had bacterial conjunctivitis will

appreciate its use (goes in like a gel but quickly flows to liquid and only

requires twice daily - as opposed to C'phenicol's 4xday).

well lets hope the drugs examiners were also unaware of this change!! i knew it was coming but not that it was upon us!!

not so sure ive passed my drugs pqe anymore!!

I wouldn't worry too much as it is unlikely that the drugs examiners would have known the full detail of the change. I only found out because I was in email conversation with Anne Thyer of the MHRA at the time.

It is also unlikely that lack of knowledge of this would be the only reason for failure !!!

As an examiner myself, I would have expected you to have known the situation prior to 7th April and to have been aware that there were some changes afoot and perhaps some indication of what they might be, but I wouldn't have failed you for not knowing the detail of the change at this stage.

Let's face it, even the guru himself (JT) acknowledges that "it slipped in quietly" !!!

:) well that puts my mind at rest!! really does seem strange though that there hasnt been more official information sent to us all!