The Pharmaceutical Services is a section of the Health Care Agency. It is responsible for the planning, organising, administering and supervising the efficient and effective functioning of the pharmaceutical services in the Department of Health. It is the responsibility of this section that the public gets access to safe, efficacious and quality pharmaceutical products and ensuring rational use of medicines by both the healthcare providers and patients. The Pharmaceutical Services within the Health Care Agency are organised into five units, each one with its own objectives and responsibilities
1. Hospital and Community Pharmacy Services
Specifically, the Pharmacy Services performs the following functions:
- Maintains an adequate medication supply
- Prepares, labels and dispenses medications, chemicals and parenteral solutions
- Participates in orientation and in-service education programs
- Provides patient and family education
- Reviews and evaluates medication orders and prescriptions for appropriateness
- Assess duplications and potential drug interactions
- Monitors medicine therapy
- Develops guidelines and standard Operation Procedures
- Provides physician and other health professionals medicine information
Hospital Pharmacy performs the following specialized functions:
- Clinical Pharmacy Services including antibiotic stewardship to optimize antibiotic use throughout the public hospitals.
- Aseptic dispensing – cytotoxic reconstitution (injectable chemotherapy)
- Medicine reconciliation and medicine history for in patients and specialized outpatient services (e.g Haemodialysis, Oncology ect). Patients are requested to bring their medicines when they are admitted.
- Ward impress- maintaining adequate medication supply on the wards.
2. Medicine Procurement Unit is responsible for the procurement of medicines for the Department of Health. The main objective is to ensure that the procurement is done cost-effectively, transparent based on rational selection, affordable prices and assured quality.
3. Drug Quality Control Laboratory serves as the major technical component of the National Drug Quality Assurance Program in the Seychelles. The main objective is to ensure the quality, efficacy and safety of all drugs distributed by the health department to its public, by testing them at regular intervals. It has to provide the necessary technical data for quality surveillance of drugs during marketing, pre-marketing and post-marketing stages. It supports the medicine procurement unit to select drugs of acceptable quality at reasonable prices.
4. Pharmaceutical Production Unit is responsible for the production of all locally made products. The main objective is to ensure that its production meets the requirement of the national needs for small volume intravenous fluids. Other productions are eye/ear/nose drops, suspensions and creams/ ointments. It is paramount that the production of these vital and essential pharmaceutical products are of very high quality and that all manufacturing activities are performed accurately and efficiently in strict compliance to Good Manufacturing Practice and Quality Control Standards.
Key Facts
- The vision of the Pharmaceutical Services is to provide the best pharmacy service
- The mission of the Pharmaceutical Services is advancing health as accountable members of the patient care team
- Medications are involved in 80% of all treatment plans and affect almost every aspect of the patient’s life.
- Over 500 different medicines are being prescribed and administered in HCA
- 726 quality control analysis done annually
- 17 primary health care pharmacies and 3 hospital pharmacies
- Over 450 000 prescriptions dispensed annually
- Patient’s treatment complexity is increasing as more people live longer with multiple co-morbid health conditions. Average number of medicines for patients with chronic conditions is 4 and can go up to 12
- Published evidence shows that 50% of prescribed medicines are not taken as intended (WHO)
- 35 % of prescriptions are polypharmacy.
- Over 10% of hospital and community prescriptions include an error