Pharmacy Council of New South Wales

In February, the Council welcomed Rick Samimi as a pharmacist practitioner member of the Council. Rick is a graduate of the University of Sydney and has been a registered pharmacist since 1991. He has completed a Master of Commerce (UNSW) and a Graduate Diploma in...

Health practitioners are traditionally reluctant to make mandatory notifications for various reasons. These include a fear of becoming a part of a drawn out legal process or a perception that they are ‘dobbing in’ their peers or fellow health practitioners. It can be a...

This month we draw your attention to a case involving a nurse who admitted to forging prescriptions on pads stolen from two medical practitioners. The prescriptions were for opioids and benzodiazepines, and the fact that they were forgeries was detected by the...

My patient has run out of their medication and doesn’t have a script but needs the medication today. I don’t want them to go without - what are my obligations and what can I do? The issue of the request for or the supply of a medication without a physical prescription...

Welcome to our first newsletter of 2021, and on behalf of the Council, Happy New Year and all the best for 2021. On 1 February we saw the requirement for Active Ingredient Prescribing for PBS & RPBS prescriptions introduced under new legislation, with a 6-month...

We republish our article about Continuing Professional Development which was included in our October edition of Council News. To review the article again or to check your answers to the quiz, read on. What is the point of Continuing Professional Development? CPD is a...

AND WE DO CARE ABOUT YOU… Amidst the turmoil of bush fires and the COVID pandemic, your Pharmacy Council Inspectors have attempted to emulate the aspirations of the US Postal Service, that is, always getting through. Apart from a six week period in April/May when your...

‘Where can I find this information?’ ‘I didn’t know this guidance was available to me.’ ‘I have never seen that advice before.’ These are phrases we at the Pharmacy Council of NSW hear repeatedly when speaking to pharmacists. When a concern has been raised in the form...

Paul Sinclair was first registered as a pharmacist in 1981 and owned community pharmacies in south west Sydney, southern highlands and the central coast during 1981 to 2017. Paul’s professional activities also included Past President NSW Branch Pharmacy Guild of...

A regular customer arrived to collect her repeat prescriptions which had been ordered through an app several days previously. This customer was a pharmacist who used to work at the pharmacy and was well known to the staff by her first name. The shop assistant greeted...