Kerala State Pharmacy Council (KSPC) will be asking the state government to amend the Council's rules specifying duties and responsibilities of working pharmacists. A proposal with the Council's suggestions in this regard will be submitted to the state government within a week, it is learnt.

The proposal, drafted by the Rules Amendment Committee constituted under KSPC consisting of council members, experts in pharmacy education, service organisations and legal experts suggest, that the rule should be amended to allow the pharmacists to surrender or freeze their registration to the council if the person opts to stop practicing as working pharmacist.

While the current provision under the rule is to cancel the registration of the pharmacists who leave pharmacy profession without informing the council, the new rule will allow the registered pharmacists to formally surrender the registration and can revoke it when the person interested to return to the profession.

The council will suggest to amend rule to mandate that each registered pharmacist has to maintain a service book provided by KSPC, in which the entire details of the person's career has to be recorded. The service book should have the details of the institution in which the pharmacist is working with the declaration of the concerned institution. The service book, which should be made available for the KSPC pharmacy inspectors at the time of inspections, will help the council to ensure that the pharmacist is not working in more than one institution at a time, according to K C Ajith Kumar, president, KSPC. He said that the proposal is focused on defining the duties and responsibilities of pharmacists working in community and hospital pharmacies.

"We have prepared the proposal through several meetings conducted in the last eight months. The proposal comes as another effort from our side to ensure better pharmacy practices in pharmacies throughout the state. The committee has finalised the proposal and we are planning to submit it to the state health ministry within a week," said Ajith Kumar. The council suggests that the rules should specify that the custodian of the medical store, equipments and premises must be the working pharmacist and the person has to wear a white coat and the identity card provided by the KSPC in the working hours. The certificate of the pharmacists and the name of the pharmacist working at the time should be displayed in front of the store.

The proposal seeks the government to define various duties of the pharmacist including the drug dispensing method, dissemination of drug information to the customer, ensuring purchase from authorised drug distributors and maintenance of stocks and bills with the correct batch numbers of the medicine to avoid any malpractice in drug distribution.

The council also suggests implementation of a penalty system for the pharmacists who fail to maintain the pharmacy practices as per the rules. The council, in its ongoing registration renewal campaign and survey, has identified that most of the pharmacy outlets are offering the service of authorised pharmacist for a limited time frame of six to eight hours a day even as the stores are operational for 12 hours.

The proposal, part of KSPC's efforts to strictly implement Section 42 of Pharmacy Act 1945 restricting unauthorised dispensation of medicines, will also make sure that the pharmacy stores will not be allowed to work at the hours when the registered pharmacist is not available. The council's registration renewal campaign and survey, commenced in March 2008, will also help the council to monitor the unauthorised drug dispensing system in several nursing homes and clinics which comes as violation of Section 42 of the Pharmacy Act.