KEY FINDINGS

The SmPC is a structured document which is successfully relied upon by the entire healthcare industry. 88% of those surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that they “prefer looking at the SmPC for gathering Prescribing Information”.

The Smpc Is Well Received

We also asked, “How easy is it to find what you are looking for on the SmPC?”, and only 1% of respondents found it difficult to use. In almost all settings, between 65% and 95% of respondents rated the SmPC easy or very easy to use

Easy

Very easy

Neither easy nor difficult

Difficult

Very difficult

HOW EASY IS IT TO FIND WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR ON THE SMPC?

The SmPC and Prescribing Information with the full SmPC are the first choice for many healthcare professionals seeking key medicine information rather than the truncated version of Prescribing Information (commonly referred to as Abbreviated PI). Pharmaceutical companies traditionally relied on Abbreviated PI to get an acceptable amount of prescribing information across in a compact format while meeting their regulatory obligations.

However, this meant - and still means - the Abbreviated PI can be difficult to use. Comments we received in our survey included “I like the arrangement on SmPC; [in the] Prescribing Information, the words look very crowded” (from a primary care pharmacist).

THE SMPC IS A KEY DRIVER OF EFFECTIVE DECISION-MAKING

We asked respondents how often they referred to the SmPC as part of their clinical roles. Despite the prevalence of the

Abbreviated PI in Pharma materials, just under half (49%) reported that they used the SmPC every day; 36% at least weekly.

HOW OFTEN DO YOU LOOK AT THE SMPC AS PART OF YOUR CLINICAL ROLE?

However, this belies a significant difference according to role. Whilst 89% of pharmacists refer to SmPC documents at least once a week, nurses said that they used the SmPC at least “a few times per month”.

Nurse, Primary Care

Perhaps one reason for this disparity is the very different reasons that healthcare professionals give for using the SmPC. We asked our respondents, “Why do you look at the information in the SmPC?”, and the responses differed widely.

Unsurprisingly, the top response was “As part of the prescribing/ dispensing process” (80% for primary care doctors, 92% for secondary care doctors, 74% for primary care pharmacists, 68% for secondary care pharmacists).

WHY DO YOU LOOK AT THE INFORMATION ON SMPC?

Thereafter, however, we gave our respondents several further options:

• To check interactions with other medications during a consultation

• To check data on clinical effectiveness

• To advise the patient on how to take medicines

• To answer patients’ questions

• To check change information from previous versions

• To meet requests from other HCPs

In responding to these options, all of the first five on this list were valued by more than 50% of at least one class (primary, secondary, other setting) of pharmacists and nurses. Among doctors, conversely, “To answer patients’ questions” (at 60%) was the only response to be selected by above 50% of doctors.