ACT checking role in pharmacy.

[hiddenone]

Hi, I've recently started as a new manager and am having a few issues concerning the role of an ACT in the pharmacy.
The previous manager in the pharmacy would not clinically check repeat prescriptions unless something had changed from the previous month. However, with the installation of a new computer system looking back at records is no longer as easy as before. The previous manager also wouldn't complete a legal check of any kind on the Rx.
However, I have stated that I want to clinically (and legally) check every Rx before it is dispensed - if that means labelling then so be it - but this has been met with some animosity from the ACT as she thinks I'm undermining her job role.
I can think of numerous examples of where the pharmacist not seeing a Rx AT ALL during the dispensing process can go wrong. I was just wondering how other people see this situation?

[Defblade]

Here's some discussion.... to save me a lot of re-typing!

The ACT should have been made aware during her training that the choice to use, and how to use, the services of an ACT rest ENTIRELY with the pharmacist. If she has forgotten that, what else has she forgotten? Or, if she knows that full well then there's a fair chance she's simply not really constitutionally suited to the role of ACT.

Either way, it sounds like a good re-visiting of her training is in order.... which she should have expected with a new pharmacist anyway!

I suspect at the bottom of it is not so much her official ACT role as that she may previously have been the unofficial "ruler" of the dispensary and sees that being taken away by a pharmacist who wants to do the job correctly rather than sidelining themselves (or being sidelined by the dispenser..... I've seen it happen.....).

I've been quite blunt above.... that's not the way I'd present it to the lady in question!! But it does sound like you need to take some quiet time with her to go through everything and explain how things should and will run from now on. The exact tack you take will depend on what you feel her motives are and her attitude....

[hiddenone]

Thank you! I knew that the old process was incorrect but there's an attitude of 'that's how the old manager did it, that's how it should be done' about it all. I definitely just want to do the job correctly. I feel much more confident after your reply in making my views clear!

[dizzyb23]

I personally hate the "well we've always done things this way" blah blah blah......what is wrong with changing things and trying new ways of working????? And can we all please remember that the Pharmacist needs to have his/her final say on matters of ACT usage etc....

[November]

This ACT sounds like the sort of one that gives all ACTs a bad name.
I am an ACT myself and personally I refuse to go anywhere near checking any prescription that has not been initialled at the bottom right corner by a pharmacist to show it has been clinically checked. ACTs need to remember that if they were to check a script that hadn't been clinically checked and it had an overdose/interaction on it and the patient were to come to harm then that could have been prevented by a pharmacist looking at it i.e. the point of the clinical check. Experienced ACTs will of course spot things like prescribing errors from time to time but we haven't done the pharmacy degree and our job is to focus on accuracy.
I'm proud to be playing an important part in improving dispensing accuracy in my pharmacy as most ACTs are and it bothers me when a few ACTs give pharmacists the impression that we are all self-important and trying to take over the dispensary!

[Defblade]

it bothers me when a few ACTs give pharmacists the impression that we are all self-important and trying to take over the dispensary!

Don't worry, we won't hold it against all of you

There's always been a few like that around.... generally known as Dispensary Dragons..... the lady who has been there forever and has "always done it that way" and believes that it is HER dispensary (more common in shops run long-term by locums, as the lazier locums allow staff to do exactly what they like - so there can be blame from all ends!).