EXCLUSIVE

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) is uncertain whether the sector has learned anything from the BBC’s investigation into illegal medicine sales in pharmacies, chief executive Duncan Rudkin has said.

Mr Rudkin said “hand on heart” he did not know whether the sector had taken away any lessons from the exposé of illegal prescription-only medicine sales in London pharmacies, which aired in December 2012. The investigation has resulted in two pharmacists being struck off the professional register and three receiving 12-month suspensions this year.

The BBC investigation involved undercover reporters filming themselves asking for prescription-only drugs – including diazepam – without a prescription. Mr Rudkin said the GPhC would “never be able to spot everything that goes on” in pharmacies, in an exclusive interview with C+D last week (December 10).

“It’s important to be realistic about the fact that there are certain sorts of transactions where there is a willing victim who is complicit. It is inherently quite difficult to capture that because there isn’t a complaint,” he said.

It was therefore important that pharmacists and the public felt comfortable raising concerns and escalating them to the regulator if necessary, he added.

Four fitness-to-practise cases that have resulted from the BBC investigation are yet to be heard, the GPhC told C+D.

Mr Rudkin stressed the regulator “definitely” wanted to “encourage learning and reflection” from its fitness-to-practise cases and was on a “journey” to apply the lessons it had learned. But he admitted it was “not there yet”. “It’s not just a matter of sweeping up and dealing with problems, we actually want to learn,” he stressed.

Last month, the regulator admitted that it was not possible to reach its target of closing the vast majority of fitness-to-practise cases within 12 months. Cases closed by an investigating committee lasted for an average of just over a year, while those closed at a fitness-to-practise hearing were an average of 18 months old, the GPhC found in a review of cases dating back to May 2012.

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