Breaking the seal - allowed or not?

[philly]

I am confused about dispensing CDs Sched 2 and 3. SOP of the company states that a seal should NOT be broken. During my training I was told that it SHOULD be broken by a pharmacist to allow quantity checking because there were some errors made in the past when the pack contained the quantity of drug different from what the label said. What should I do then?
I think that breaking a seal means that I take over the responsibilty for the product from its manufacturer. The same applies to a situation where I, or a dispenser working under my supervision, cut blisters, dispense loose tablets from a bottle or use pharmacy's own packaging instead of the original packaging.
Any thoughts on this issue welcome.

[johnep]

A difficult one, had a strip of physeptone tabs returned by customer with empty spaces. After that we had to open every box and check. Lots of products have 'do not accept if seal is broken'.
johnep

[Pharmanaut]

A difficult one, had a strip of physeptone tabs returned by customer with empty spaces. After that we had to open every box and check. Lots of products have 'do not accept if seal is broken'.
johnep

I'm had physeptone and pethidine with intact empty blisters.
After that, we always check, as we do for "PDE5's" eg sildenafil to make sure the boxes have the stock quantity in them.

Damned if we do and damned if we don't.
Someone somewhere will make a court case out of it.
In the meantime - renew your PDA.

[hibernia]

I had a patient return with a bottle of paed antibiotics that said "do not accept if seal is broken". I still don't know how you are supposed to add the water to make it up without breaking the seal.
Fortunately the pateint accepted my explaination that it was an instruction to the pharmacist not the patient although that isn't clear from the packaging.

A far bigger problem is the number of packs that aren't sealed. You often find ones with missing tablets or strips but you don't know if they arrived like that or if somebody in the pharmacy has opened it.
Many packs of co-codamol and tramadol aren't sealed, at least in Ireland they aren't.

[bobbin]

I am confused about dispensing CDs Sched 2 and 3. SOP of the company states that a seal should NOT be broken. During my training I was told that it SHOULD be broken by a pharmacist to allow quantity checking because there were some errors made in the past when the pack contained the quantity of drug different from what the label said. What should I do then?
I think that breaking a seal means that I take over the responsibilty for the product from its manufacturer. The same applies to a situation where I, or a dispenser working under my supervision, cut blisters, dispense loose tablets from a bottle or use pharmacy's own packaging instead of the original packaging.
Any thoughts on this issue welcome.

Not sure what to suggest. Personally, I don't break the seal. I always check that the seal is intact, of course.

[bobbin]

I'm had physeptone and pethidine with intact empty blisters.
After that, we always check, as we do for "PDE5's" eg sildenafil to make sure the boxes have the stock quantity in them.

I am irritated that Pfizer have started adding 'do not accept if the seal is broken' to the packaging of their products. Did not one of their thousands of staff consider that doctors often prescribe less than a full box? At the very least, it ought to be made clear that this is a note to the pharmacist, not to the patient.