TO REDUCE medication errors, medicine labels need to be more consistent, with important information made more prominent and easier to read, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has reinforced in a presentation, and now posted online.
The advice was delivered at the end of July this year at PSA17, at the flagship meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, via Catherine Brown, Jenny Burnett, Rosemary Goodenough and Jolanta Samoc.
The TGA says it has introduced changes to help update Australian medicine labels and align them with international best practice.
"The changes will help Australians to make more informed choices about their medicines and to use them more safely," it said, highlighting that these changes were part of its Quality Use of Medicines program.
Key changes include the names of active ingredients being more prominent in larger font on the front of packs adjacent to or directly below the brand name.
Prescription medicine cartons must include the medicine name on three non-opposing sides to improve identification of medicines in dispensaries and will require a dedicated space for attaching a dispensing label.
Colour contrast rules have changed as well to improve legibility while there will be a Critical Health Information table in a consistent format on OTC medicines.
Declarable substances such as allergens need to be mentioned on the labeling and as has been flagged for some time now, Australian medicine name ingredient spelling is morphing to align with international standards but for a transition period, labels will often contain both spellings for clarity.
See the full PSA17 presentation at tga.gov.au.
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