1 In this study, the term ‘emergency supply’ refers to the supply of medicines by a community pharmacist (CP) to a patient where a fee buy Ku-0059436 for the service is paid by the patient or a loan of medication, which is made in advance of an anticipated NHS prescription with no additional charge to the patient.2 Providing this service requires the CP to consider the well-being of the patient whilst balancing the consequences of supplying or not supplying the requested medicines. Within a larger study, the aim of this audit

is to explore and quantify the emergency supply of medications being undertaken by community pharmacists. A prospective audit was undertaken by 22 CPs in North West England over a four week period. Utilising a weighted snowballing technique (i.e. purposively sampling of potential pharmacists who had been identified by those who had already consented to, or aware of, the study). This ensured a diverse sample of pharmacies, with regard to location, setting, opening hours and type (i.e. independent, small/medium chain Selleck GS-1101 and national multiple) were incorporated into the study. The date of the request, patient’s age, residential status, medical practice, medicines requested, dose prescribed, reason for request and action taken were recorded. A research assistant visited the CPs weekly to encourage and enhance the quality of the data collection. NRES approval was obtained for the

overarching study. 300 emergency supply requests were made by 247 patients or carers (patients aged 3 months to 90 years); mainly for single CYTH4 medications, with two medicines or more requested on 28 (9.3%) occasions. 284 (94.7%) medicines were loaned to the patient in anticipation of an NHS prescription. Almost half of the requests took place on Friday (26%, 78/300) or Monday (22%, 66/300). Eight (2.7%) requests were made for children under the age of 12 years, 30% (90/300) from patients aged 45–59 years, 51% (153/300)

from those aged over 60 years, with 58% (89/153) of these being over 70 years. The main categories of medicines were cardiovascular (31.7%, 95/300), respiratory and endocrine systems (both 12%, 36/300). Medicines for mental health conditions and pain management each accounted for 8% (24/300). The reason given by most patients was ‘forgot to order’ (66.7%, 200/300). Other reasons included ‘medicines out of sync’ (5%, 15/300), lost/misplaced (6%, 18/300) or they had taken more than the prescribed amount (2%, 6/300). Issues originating at medical practices included insufficient quantity prescribed (6.7%, 20/300); missing items (3%, 9/300); prescription not ready on time (3%, 9/300 requests). Issues originating at the pharmacy involved ordering (1.7%, 5/300). The study indicates that a significant number of medications are being loaned to patients by CPs ensuring continuity of treatment where a prescription was not available.