Cegedim Healthcare Solutions have been made aware of an issue with Schedule 4 Controlled Drugs (CDs) not being flagged as such in Vision Anywhere, which results in the following:
• The ‘Controlled Drug’ icon is not displayed next to these drugs in the results list
• When a drug of this type is selected to be prescribed, a warning message of the type “Drug_Name Dosage is a Controlled Drug“ will not displayed to the user
• Where the number of treatment days is more than 30 days for a prescription for a drug of this type, a user will not be presented with the warning message “Warning - this is a controlled drug and the treatment days are greater than 30"
• A prescribed drug of this type will not be printed off in a separate prescription
This presents a risk that a clinician prescribing a Schedule 4 CD using Vision Anywhere may be unaware that the drug is a Schedule 4 CD.
As a possible consequence of this risk, a Schedule 4 CD may be prescribed to a patient with more than the normally recommended 30 days' supply. This may result in a pharmacist delaying dispensing the drug to the patient and potentially delay the patient obtaining their medication.
Another potential scenario resulting from this risk is that a Schedule 4 CD may be printed on the same prescription as a non-CD drug. The former is valid for only 28 days, the latter for 6 months. The prescribing clinician may wrongly advise the patient that the prescription is valid for longer than it is and it is subsequently rejected at the pharmacy after 28 days as a consequence.
We hope to have this issue resolved as soon as possible. In the meantime, we would ask that Vision Anywhere users please take additional care when prescribing Schedule 4 CDs, in view of the possible undesirable consequences described above.
Many thanks for your co-operation with this.
