Dilemma: Will charging for patient medication deliveries cause harm?

 

Community pharmacies in the UK have for many years offered medication delivery services to patients for free. In recent months a number of community pharmacy owners have taken the decision to either charge for these delivery services or withdraw them altogether.

 

This dilemma will explore the various aspects of this issue not least whether withdrawing delivery services or changing for them may impact on patient care or even potentially cause harm. There are some potentially interesting medico-legal issues here but also the very real potential that these changes may impact on patient care.

 

It is our hope that it helps you to reflect on your own practice and through the publication of the results you will find out how some of your peers would have behaved in similar situations.

 

As usual, we have included some interactive polls along the way which we hope you will take part in. We have included the opportunity to expand on your opinion at each stage. We hope this will serve to be a really useful collaborative learning experience for everyone.

 

We will publish the results of the polls and the comments in the coming weeks.

 

Click here to begin the dilemma

 

Note: the purpose of this dilemma was to present a case that may occur in practice; for you to consider what you would do if faced with it, and to encourage you to reflect on your decision. The possible answers are examples and are not an exhaustive list of all the potential solutions.