The first criticisms arose on the eve of the experimentation with the sale of single drugs. They mainly emanate from trade unions of dispensing pharmacists.
Dispensing drugs individually to avoid waste and dangerous self-medication, the experiment is launched for three years from this 1er April in 78 voluntary pharmacies in Lorraine, Limousin and Paca. As part of the experiment provided for by the 2014 social security financing law (LFSS 2014), 14 molecules could be dispensed individually in voluntary pharmacies.
Gaps in the approach
Amoxicillin + clavulanic acid, cefotiam, levoflaxacin… here are some names of the antibiotics included in the experiment. A large-scale project that is already arousing criticism. According to the MPA, the president of the Union of Community Pharmacists Unions (Uspo), Gilles Bonnefond, called on pharmacists not to volunteer. During the Pharmagora trade fair, he denounced the inadequate remuneration conditions (€ 1,000 for the entire duration) and a task that fell short of their skills.
The president of the Federation of Pharmaceutical Unions of France (FSPF), Philippe Gaertner, was more moderate. “We cannot launch the experiment as it is,” he told the PAM without calling for a boycott.
“A semi-industrial system”
Michel Caillaud, president of the National Union of Pharmacies of France (UNPF) also welcomed the experiment with freshness. In an interview with Jim (subscribers link), he recognizes that unit dispensation “should avoid a certain amount of waste” but points to the limits of the organization: “a semi-industrial system with a very high material and human cost”, the need to ” reduce the range of prescribers ”but also an uncertainty that this will improve patient compliance.
According to Michel Caillaud, choosing antibiotics for experimentation is not a relevant choice: “Obviously, it was not this drug class that had to be chosen! The packaging of antibiotics is already sufficiently varied to respond appropriately to medical prescriptions! He declares. The relevance of the device was also questioned by the National Council of the Order of Pharmacists last November. Its president Isabelle Adenot questioned the usefulness of dispensing on a unit basis while highlighting the many questions that remained unanswered.
Sources: JIM; APM
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