HDA Media And Political Bulletin – 1 April 2016
Rise in hub-and-spoke might discriminate against women
Chemist and Druggist, Annabelle Collins, 31 March 2016
The increased use of hub-and-spoke dispensing model could disproportionally affect women as they represent 90% of the pharmacy technicians whose jobs could be affected by the change. The Equality Act 2010 protects against such indirect discrimination where the policy applies to everyone in the same way but has a worse effect on a particular group.
GlaxoSmithKline to ‘drop patents in poor countries for better drug access’ 31 March 2016, BBC News
Pharmaceutical firm GSK has announced that it would no longer file patents in poorer countries, taking a “graduated” approach to its intellectual property based on the nations’ wealth. This move aims to widen the public access to medicines and treatments.
The announcement was also reported by The Pharmaceutical Journal and European Pharmaceutical Review.
Leicester Royal Infirmary installs new pharmacy robot Digital Health, Healthcare IT news in brief
Leicester Royal Infirmary has introduced a new robot in its pharmacy. The robot includes a user-friendly touchscreen and barcode system to ensure instant access to stock levels, space availability and expiring stock information. |
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Leicester Royal Infirmary installs new pharmacy robot
Digital Health, Healthcare IT news in brief
University of Leicester Hospitals NHS Trust has installed a new pharmacy robot from Asteral. The ARX UK Vmax robotic pharmacy replaces the previous equipment which had reached the end of its agreed lifecycle. It includes a user-friendly touchscreen and barcode system to ensure instant access to stock levels, space availability and expiring stock information. It can also collect eight packets at once, which is a substantial increase over the old robot. The self-cleaning robot is also quieter and is 50% more space efficient at storing packets, opening up further storage space for the trust. |