The scenario

The pharmacy counter assistant has approached Shamma and asked her to “have a chat with Mr Billings about his inhalers”. Shamma stops her checking at a safe time and goes to introduce herself to the patient.

“Hi Mr Billings, my name is Shamma and I’m the pharmacy technician, how can I help?”

“Thanks Shamma, I was just after a bit of advice really – and please call me Sam. I had a phone call a few weeks ago from the surgery, and they’ve changed my asthma inhaler. I was a bit stressed at work when they called and if I’m honest I can’t really remember much about how they said I should use the new inhaler – it looks a lot different to my last one! Also – do you know why they’ve changed my inhaler? They said something about the new one being ‘greener’?”

Shamma checks Sam’s records and can see that he was recently prescribed a Fostair 100/6 microgram Nexthaler, having previously been prescribed a Fostair 100/6 microgram pressurised metered dose inhaler (pMDI).