Jeanette Santiago

Community Pharmacy

A community pharmacy is a pharmacy that deals directly with people in the local area. It has responsibilities including compounding, counseling, checking and dispensing of prescription drugs to the patients with care, accuracy, and legality. A community pharmacy has appropriate procurement, storage, dispensing and documentation of medicines. It is an important branch of the pharmacy profession and involves a registered pharmacist with the education, skills and competence to deliver the professional service to the community. Community pharmacists are the health professionals most accessible to the public. They supply medicines in accordance with a prescription or, when legally permitted, sell them without a prescription. In addition to ensuring an accurate supply of appropriate products, their professional activities also cover counselling of patients at the time of dispensing of prescription and non-prescription drugs, drug information to health professionals, patients and the general public, and participation in health-promotion programmes. They maintain links with other health professionals in primary health care.