The emergency supply of prescription-only medicines: a survey of requests to community pharmacists and their views on the procedures

Assessment of Pharmacists Prescribing Practices in Poland-A Descriptive Study

Pharmacists play a beneficial role in supplying medicines to patients. Pharmacist prescribing practices were introduced into law in Poland in 2002, permitting pharmacists to prescribe medications in emergency situations and in 2020 the new law allowed to prescribe in all situation where it is needed because of the health risks reasons. Our aim was to analyze pharmacist prescribing practices in Poland and confirm the useful of pharmacists' activity in this area. Additionally, pharmacists were also authorized to issue reimbursed prescriptions for themselves or their family members. Since January 2020, only e-prescriptions are allowed in Poland. A retrospective analysis of the inspection written reports from 842 community pharmacies in the representative region of Poland with a population of two million, carried out in the time period from 2002 to 2016 was performed (2189 prescriptions) to assess the emergency pharmacist prescribing practices in Poland. The second part of the research was based on digital data on pharmacists prescriptions (18,529) provided by the e-Health Centre (a governmental organization under the Ministry of Health responsible for the development of health care information systems in Poland), enabling to conduct the analysis of pharmacist's prescribing from 1 of April 2020 to 31 of October 2020. The analysis gave the insight of the evolution of the pharmacy prescribing patterns. In general, pharmaceutical prescriptions were issued in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, in town- or city center pharmacies, and in pharmacies in residential areas. The most common reason for a pharmaceutical prescription was that the patient was running out of a medicine and was unable to contact their physician. Cardiovascular, respiratory, dermatological, and digestive medications were most frequently prescribed. An analysis of pharmacists' prescribing data from 1 April 2020 to 31 October 2020 confirmed the rapid increase of pharmaceutical prescriptions following implementation of the new legislative act during the COVID-19 epidemic.

On the frontline against COVID-19: Community pharmacists' contribution during a public health crisis

The global spread of COVID-19 is placing unprecedented demands on healthcare services. In this time of crisis, innovative and adaptive methods of practising will be required across all health professions. In order to maximise the use of current available resources, it is vital that existing services are comprehensively reviewed and full use is made of any unrealised potential among healthcare providers. Community pharmacy is one of a number of health professions that has a key role to play in responding to the current pandemic. As the scope of community pharmacy practice varies considerably across countries, it is important to examine ways in which the profession can assist with the public health response to COVID-19 and maintaining the continuity of healthcare services. This article seeks to highlight roles and activities that community pharmacists can undertake to help in relieving pressure on other areas of the health service, such as general practice. This information could help to inform future decisions about the restructuring of existing health services by governments, public health bodies and policy makers in response to public health crises such as COVID-19.