Sir,

Thank you for sending this to me for comments.

General comments:

I share the concerns raised. Pharmacists are only too well aware of the dangers of transcription and/or reading errors leading to patients receiving incorrect medicines.

Use of generic terms is now routine practice by pharmacy computer systems but combination agents of eye drops where there is only one product will be identified by the proprietary name. Manufacturer's should take some responsibility when naming their agents. Cosopt®, for example, establishes from the start that it is a combination agent, while Xalacom® emphasises the similarity to Xalatan®.

With generic terminology of combinations of oral forms it is an established practice to use the prefix co- (as with co-trimoxazole and co-proxamol). While in general practice computer-generated prescriptions are standard, hospitals in the main still rely on the handwritten prescription followed up by a typed letter to the GP. The problems of both transcription and reading errors will be considerably reduced come the day of shared electronic medication records!