Confidentiality

[trulylovelyperson]

IMHO Health Boards currently paranoid about bits of paper with patient details on them -eg smoking cessation/ EHC forms -banging on about lockable filing cabinets necessary for secure storage . At present most pharmacies deal with information-sensitive documents routinely - they are called prescriptions - and up till now there has been no requirement that these be kept locked up. My argument is that the secure 'box' these documents are stored in is called 'the pharmacy'.
But then I only work in independents and the situation in supermarket pharmacies may well differ if non-pharmacy staff have access to the dispensary .And so this demonstrates that 'one size fits all' legislation is not appropriate . In current hard times purchase of lockable cabinets just one more expense and as for where to put damn thing...................

Any thoughts?

[johnep]

With the government's record of losing confidential information, mote and beam come to mind.
johnep

[mrmeds]

i think your right TLP, its another case of people trying to cover every possible eventuality no matter how remote the risks are. I would have thought vetting your staff and restricting access to the dispensary should be enough

[DispenserJosh]

Totally Agree! It seems that the loss of the Data disks last year has made the NHS paranoid. I've been working on the Information Governance Toolkit for my pharmacy and a lot of it seems extremely OTT. We've got locked filing cabinets already which is fortunate! A pharmacy i used to work at experienced a series of break-ins and there was an article on the C+D website about an armed robbery in London so the risks are valid in some respects, however i dont think armed robbers are after personal information somehow!

[dan the dealer]

IMHO Health Boards currently paranoid about bits of paper with patient details on them -eg smoking cessation/ EHC forms -banging on about lockable filing cabinets necessary for secure storage . At present most pharmacies deal with information-sensitive documents routinely - they are called prescriptions - and up till now there has been no requirement that these be kept locked up. My argument is that the secure 'box' these documents are stored in is called 'the pharmacy'.
But then I only work in independents and the situation in supermarket pharmacies may well differ if non-pharmacy staff have access to the dispensary .And so this demonstrates that 'one size fits all' legislation is not appropriate . In current hard times purchase of lockable cabinets just one more expense and as for where to put damn thing...................

Any thoughts?

I've had the same discussion with my area manager (I work in a national multiple). I was pulled up on an audit for having some patient sensitive material not in a lockable cupboard/cabinet.

I pointed out that there were many more patient sensitive items on the shelf awaiting collection. I'm sure they don't want to pay for shutters on every prescription bay they have. Surely some common sense has to prevail.