Boots responds to ex-manager's claims of target pressures
The health and beauty giant has responded to a fitness-to-practise case of a former employee who falsified minor ailments service forms
EXCLUSIVE
Boots has responded to allegations by one of its former managers that “considerable” pressure to meet targets drove him to fraudulently register patients for Scotland's minor ailments service.
Pharmacist Asif Alam, registration number 2070147, was suspended for nine months by the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) fitness-to-practise committee on June 9 after he admitted to “stupidly and naively” falsely registering £700-worth of patients for Scotland’s minor ailments service.
Mr Alam claimed to the GPhC that he had been put under “considerable” pressure to meet targets. He told the regulator that independent pharmacies – where he has worked as a locum following his dismissal from Boots – do not pressure their staff in the same way that the multiples do.
Boots' response
In response to the claims, Boots’ chief pharmacist Marc Donovan told C+D that the multiple “cannot comment on individual cases”.
But the health and beauty giant “makes it clear” to staff that clinical services should not be undertaken inappropriately, he stressed. Boots pharmacists are “empowered” to use their professional judgement to decide how appropriate it is to offer a clinical service, he said.
“If a pharmacist feels their work is being compromised at any time, they have a right and a professional duty to speak to their line manager or to the chief pharmacist’s office to raise the issue and to make sure a solution can be found,” Mr Donovan added.
Read C+D's full coverage of Mr Alam's fitness-to-practise case here.
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