Sixty-five percent of respondents to an exclusive Irish Pharmacy News poll say their community pharmacy team is “neither informed nor prepared” for the upcoming February 2019 Falsified Medicines Compliance deadline. The polling was carried out on a number of social media platforms over a weekend in October and both pharmacists and technicians responded.
- Just over 33 percent felt that their team was informed but not prepared.
- Of the 169 people polled, just two people, representing 1.2 percent of respondents, said they were both informed and prepared.
- The results mean that cumulatively, over 98 percent of respondents consider themselves to be unprepared for the changes.
Just three full months (bearing in mind the Christmas break) are left for all actors in the supply chain to achieve compliance. While not scientific, the IPN poll results broadly support the view that many community pharmacy teams are under-informed and under-prepared for the changes. IMVO are urging people to read the information on their website and to decide which software programmes they intend to use in advance of the on-boarding process. IMVO expect to write to all registered pharmacies in the near future. More information can be found on www.imvo.ie.
