Welcome to the latest newsletter of the Pharmacy Council of New South Wales. The Council is still regularly referred to as “the Board”. When national registration changed on 1 July 2010 the roles of the old Board were split between AHPRA and the newly established Council. This still creates confusion for many practitioners, students and the profession in general.

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Expressions of interest are invited for membership of the Pharmacy Council of NSW for the following vacancies:
1 Pharmacist involved in tertiary education of pharmacists
1 Pharmacist with expertise in working at a hospital pharmacy
2 Community members
1 Lawyer

For more information and to apply, visit our website.

The Pharmacy Board of Australia and the Medical Board of Australia have released a joint statement on compounded medicines reminding medical practitioners and pharmacists about their respective responsibilities in the prescribing and dispensing of compounded medicines.

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Are you a compounding pharmacist or thinking of starting up as a compounding pharmacist? If so, you should ensure you are familiar with and adhere to the Pharmacy Board of Australia's Guidelines on compounding of medicines.

Over the last few months we have received a number of complaints concerning compounding pharmacists. These notifications have involved compounding of products where there is an ARTG listed medicine available; procurement from non TGA licensed suppliers, and lack of adequate training, facilities or necessary equipment. These notifications also highlight the importance of ensuring that compounding staff are appropriately trained and that robust operating procedures are in place and adhered to.

In 2018 revised lodgement dates will be implemented to address the additional time taken to assess ownership applications involving complex business structures. From 2018 a revised schedule will apply to all applications including those involving trusts.

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A new exemption is now in force applying to the storage of drugs of addiction requiring refrigeration. There are however numerous conditions attached to this exception.

To read more, click here.

The large number of complaints we receive each year involve a dispensing error.

During the management of such complaints, we attempt to establish the factors that have led to the dispensing error.

A recurrent theme is unreasonable workload. Excessive workloads do not allow the pharmacist to spend the time required on a particular task, resulting in shortcuts and inevitably errors.

As a pharmacist owner and/or pharmacists in charge of a dispensary or pharmacy department it is your responsibility to have in place suitable quality-assurance systems and procedures for the management of pharmacists’ workloads.

If you are in a situation where you believe your work is compromised due to the workload, we urge you to address your concerns with your manager and/or the pharmacy owner.

For further information please refer to the guideline on pharmacists’ workloads in the Pharmacy Board of Australia’s Guidelines for dispensing of medicines.

Christmas Closedown 25 December 2017 to 5 January 2018

Our office will be closed from Monday 25 December 2017 to Friday 5 January 2018 (inclusive).

Please note that any emails sent to us during the closedown period will be attended to after the office reopens on 8 January 2018.