Maintenance treatment in schizophrenia

There is a great case for having pharmacists as permanent members of the Emergency Department, to improve urgent and emergency care and impact on waiting times. Professor Mojgan Sani and her team Nottingham University Hospital report on their original study into the Influence and impact of implementing clinical pharmacy services on critical medicines in the Emergency Department. The recent unequivocal recommendation of the use of infliximab biosimilars by the Royal College of Physicians presents opportunities for pharmacists to take a lead in driving the safe and appropriate use of these products. In this issue, Job Harenberg and Joao Goncalves discuss how the next wave of biosimilars is impacting anticoagulation therapy and management of rheumatologic conditions. Antipsychotic medication is still the mainstay of maintenance pharmacotherapy of schizophrenia. Katherine Delargy and Katrina Powell detail how the patient should be empowered to make informed choices around medication and be informed about the likelihood of adherence to a particular treatment, remembering all the while that they are an active partner in their care wherever insight and the severity of the illness allows. Click here to read the issue online.