Final guidance, developed by NICE and Public Health England, is advising GP and healthcare professionals how they should treat sore throat, a common respiratory tract infection. Respiratory tract infections are one of the main reasons people visit their GP, or seek help from a pharmacist. Around one-in-four (27 per cent) GP appointments made for respiratory [...]
Community pharmacists in GP practices can significantly relieve pressure on doctors and nurses by providing patient-focused services that help free up appointment times, according to a new independent report recently released. The NHS England-funded report was undertaken by experts from the School of Pharmacy at the University of Nottingham. This pilot project was seeking to evaluate [...]
Researchers at Dartmouth, Stanford University, and IBM Research, conducted a critical review of existing literature to determine whether social media big data can be used to understand communication and behavioural patterns related to prescription drug abuse. Their study found that with proper research methods and attention to privacy and ethical issues, social media big data [...]
Combining a 16-week initial course of the medication omalizumab with oral immunotherapy (OIT) greatly improves the efficacy of OIT for children with allergies to multiple foods, new clinical trial findings show. After 36 weeks, more than 80 per cent of children who received omalizumab and OIT could safely consume two-gram portions of at least two [...]
Fresh insights into key hormones found in commonly prescribed medicines have been discovered, providing further understanding of their side-effects. The study in immune cells may help to explain why some people develop resistance to these drugs, which have powerful anti-inflammatory benefits. Its findings are significant because glucocorticoid hormones – also known as steroids – are [...]
A synthetic cannabis-like drug in a pill was safe and effective in treating obstructive sleep apnea in the first large multi-site study of a drug for apnea funded by the National Institutes of Health. The study was conducted at Northwestern Medicine and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). There’s currently no drug treatment for [...]
Researchers at Dartmouth, Stanford University, and IBM Research, conducted a critical review of existing literature to determine whether social media big data can be used to understand communication and behavioural patterns related to prescription drug abuse. Their study found that with proper research methods and attention to privacy and ethical issues, social media big data [...]
As temperatures in the UK plummet – putting four million people with asthma at risk of life-threatening asthma attacks – Asthma UK is urging pharmacists to get behind its #Scarfie campaign, where ‘a scarf could save a life’. Cold air is a major trigger for asthma attacks, with 75 per cent of the 5.4 million [...]
The PDA has responded to the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland’s (PSNI’s) consultation, which ran from 2nd October to 27th November 2017, on proposed new premises standards for registered pharmacies. The PDA challenged both the format and content of the new premises standards, saying that they appear to be a ‘significant retrograde step’ and that the [...]
The Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) is running a new campaign to promote the reporting of suspected side-effects from medicines. The campaign, which will continue across social media until Friday, forms part of an EU-wide awareness week that features a focus on over-the-counter medicines. While many people don’t experience any problems when using medicines, side-effects [...]
