Pharmacy staff giving 'bad' advice

POORLY-trained staff in some pharmacies are giving consumers unsuitable and potentially dangerous medical advice, according to an undercover investigation by Which?

The consumer watchdog says it was given unsatisfactory advice in a third of 101 pharmacies it visited across the UK. Independent pharmacies rated particularly poorly, giving unsatisfactory advice on about half of visits, the organisation said.

Investigators visited Lloyds, Boots, Alliance/Moss, independent and supermarket pharmacies as well as national and regional chains to ask about emergency contraception, migraine drug Imigran Recovery and traveller's diarrhoea.

A panel of three experienced pharmacists gave their verdicts on the advice given to the investigators. They found particular problems with sales of the migraine drug Imigran Recovery, which used to be available only on prescription and should now be overseen by a pharmacist and sold after the customer has answered a number of questions.

However in 40 per cent of cases, sales assistants did not alert the pharmacist, and one in five sold it without asking a single question.

Investigators were four times more likely to receive unsatisfactory advice about traveller's diarrhoea from sales assistants than from pharmacists.

Which? also checked sales at four online chemists and found that one - Asset Chemist - sold an illegal quantity of paracetamol-based painkillers.

A researcher reported buying 160 Solpadeine Plus (paracetamol-based painkillers) from Asset, even though it is illegal to sell more than 100 without a doctor's prescription. The case is to be investigated by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, which has also pledged to support improvements in the industry by mystery shopping and training, Which? said.

The poor advice could have led to customers being given unsuitable medicine for migraines, missing a serious infection which was causing traveller's diarrhoea or avoidably suffering a sexually transmitted disease, Which? said.

Which? magazine editor Neil Fowler said: "People are increasingly turning to pharmacies for the sort of advice they might have gone to their GP for in the past, but we're concerned that in some cases they're getting advice that is unsuitable and potentially unsafe."