What would YOU do?

[mhb08112]

A patient hands in a prescription ,from a Spanish doctor, to your pharmacy for dispensing.

The prescription is for a cough medicine containing the cough suppressant, pholcodine, for a two year old girl. The patient’s parent, who speaks little English, explains that her daughter has had this medication on two previous occasions and found it very good.
Such preparations are not recommended for children under the age of 6 in the BNF.

How would deal with this situation?


First thing - yes this IS an assignment, and I am a Student. I DO NOT WANT ANY HELP WITH ANSWERING THIS QUESTION FOR MY ASSIGNMENT- I CAN DO MY OWN WORK FOR UNIVERSITY - I DO NOT WANT TO PLAGIARISE.

I am just interested in your guys opinion.

My answer to this question is going to be along the lines of - just to prove further to others (including my university, if they see this) that I am not going to plagiarise.

“Communicate as effectively as possible with patient’s mother and persuade her that taking her child back to a doctor – if this is the third time the lady has needed this medication then it is very likely that there is an underlying condition which warrants further investigation.

If required, to increase chances of this happening I would personally make an appointment for her, perhaps with an OOH doctor, and look into the availability of interpreters (which would be available to NHS24 OOH services)"




I do however, work in a Community Pharmacy at the moment, and have done for over 2 years, and the sad truth of the matter is that most of the Pharmacists I work with probably wouldn’t do this, and would probably just fob off the patient with their Spanish prescription. Some are just lazy, and some do not see it as their problem. Others simply do not have the time.

My question to you is, in the environment you personally work in, and including all the factors which affect your work (e.g. how short staffed you are), what would you honestly do in this situation?

[bleepholder]

i'm not from a community background, but i would be thinking the child may be asthmatic. correct me if i'm wrong but children presenting with night time coughs, assuming the cough is at night time, is an indicator of asthma. so definately try and persuade the parent to go back and see the dr. i'm assuming its a spanish dr working in UK so would have good knowledge of english. maybe speak to him directly

[johnep]

Well spotted. Original poster just said from a spanish Dr, did not say if an NHS script or private from EU.
After all, lots of Drs practising in UK are from abroad. Could be Scots,Irish, Welsh ,etc. It is not the Dr who is important, rather the origin of the script itself.
johnep

[dizzyb23]

My wonderful spanish Pharmacist would tell the person to go to see a GP re childs problem...

[GAZ]

you say that the parents speak very little english...what language do they speak?

[bleepholder]

im guessing spanish, since the parent went to see a spanish doctor. although a flaw in this scenario is that how do you know it was a spanish doctor???

[johnep]

Wonder why the original poster has not bothered to return.
johnep

[Itchy Feet]

Wonder why the original poster has not bothered to return.
johnep

I guess being a student he/she does not experience time the same way those of who work do

(sorry couldn't resist)

[mhb08112]

Wonder why the original poster has not bothered to return.
johnep

I have answered the question, like I said in my original post.

I haven't returned because I didn't really see anything in this thread worth commenting on.

[bleepholder]

rude! we offer our ideas and go to the great lengths of replying, only to have them dissed!! i'll remember that the enxt time i answer a thread of a student requesting ideas.....