Pharmacist suspended for stealing £10 daily parking fees

Pharmacist Nirav Harshad Patel, registration number 2060771, has been suspended by the GPhC for nine months after stealing £10 a day to pay for parking costs.

Mr Patel took a total of £80 in cash from his employer in October 2008 after it failed to provide him with a parking permit, a General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) fitness-to-practise committee heard on January 18 this year.

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The committee accepted that Mr Patel felt "entitled" to take money from his employer, Sherry's Pharmacy, to cover his daily parking costs. But it warned that, although he had only taken a "relatively small amount of money", he had done it in a way that had been "devised to hide what he had done from his employer" and it ruled that his conduct had "fallen below the standard to be expected of a registrant pharmacist".

Mr Patel first took money from Sherry's Pharmacy in October 2008, when his employers "frequently" failed to cover his parking costs. After his employers refused to pay invoices for parking, Mr Patel asked the pharmacy staff to arrange for him to be paid £10 a day in cash expenses. He claimed he didn't know the staff were retaining cash from sales to pay for the expenses.

But Mr Patel then changed his story after hearing evidence from his counter assistant, who testified that he had asked her to give him £10 parking money and not ring £10 worth of sales through the till. Mr Patel agreed with the statement, but maintained that his employers had promised to cover parking costs, which they denied.

The committee heard that Mr Patel was called to a meeting with the company's financial director and superintendent pharmacist after they discovered he had been taking cash from the pharmacy on October 14, 2008. In the meeting, Mr Patel admitted his wrongdoing, agreed to reimburse the total sum of £80 and said he would write a letter of apology.

But it was "suggested" that Mr Patel faced "threats and bullying" at the meeting and the superintendent pharmacist agreed that Mr Patel may have believed his employers would not report him to the regulator or police if he apologised and repaid the money. The committee concluded Mr Patel "was probably subjected to some pressure" to repay the money he had taken.

The committee ruled that Mr Patel was aware he had "no authority" to take money for his parking costs. It added that by involving junior staff in the dishonesty, Mr Patel had put them in a "very awkward position". Mr Patel also lacked insight into the gravity of his misconduct, it said. 

Despite giving "frequently evasive and confusing" evidence, the committee noted that Mr Patel received a good reference from his previous employers, Harrow Pharmacy, where he worked as a locum pharmacist.

It concluded that Mr Patel's behaviour was not "fundamentally incompatible" with his registration, but highlighted that his continuing professional development record was not "as complete and up to date" as it should be. The committee ruled to suspend Mr Patel for nine months and set a review hearing for that date, where Mr Patel would need to give evidence he had "kept his knowledge of developments in pharmacy up to date".

"It is necessary to send a message to the profession and the public that dishonesty, of whatever degree, is wholly unacceptable in a professional registered pharmacist," the committee said.

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