Dales makes life easier with Braille labelling

Dales makes life easier with Braille labelling

Dales Pharmaceuticals has applied Braille to one of the vitamin supplements it manufactures and packs for one of its customers.

The Prescription-only Medicine (POM) pack of Ketovite Tablets is relatively small and so space was an issue in terms of label construction.

Dales, the manufacturing division of the international pharmaceutical company Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC is used to such packaging challenges and, together with packaging experts at Denny Bros, set out to solve the problem of fitting all the copy on pack.

"Clearly Fix-a-Form helps us to protect public health by improving the roll-out of patient information and so we expect to be seeing a lot more of this ingenious device on products we make in the future."

Braille is now firmly on the packaging agenda thanks to the EU Directive of October 2005. All products will need to feature the product name and strength in Braille by October 2010. As the leaflet for medicinal products also has to be User Tested, copy was checked to ensure it was user-friendly.

The final Fix-a-Form had six headings ranging from What are Ketovite Tablets? to How to Store? and this information was neatly tucked within a 12-page concertina booklet. 70,000, resealable labels were machine applied to the bottles of 100 tablets. The final leaflet label is just 11.5cm x 2.5cm in size.

Dales Pharmaceuticals has since added Braille to other Fix-a-Form multi-page labels with further additions in the pipeline.

Explaining the most important change for over a decade to the provision of information to patients, a spokesperson for Dales Pharmaceuticals said: "Over a million people in Britain have impaired vision and most of these people are elderly, a group that is prescribed nearly half of all prescription drugs so all new medicines must now come complete with Braille and a comprehensive manufacturer’s leaflet."

"Clearly Fix-a-Form helps us to protect public health by improving the roll-out of patient information and so we expect to be seeing a lot more of this ingenious device on products we make in the future."