Kofi Akuamoah Boahene, registration number 2052979, has been issued a four-month suspension by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) for giving a vaccine intended for adults to a child.
In hearings on August 27 and 28, the GPhC’s fitness-to-practise (FtP) committee heard that Boahene administered the adult shingles vaccine Zostavax to a two-year-old instead of the prescribed chickenpox vaccine Varivax.
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According to the hearing documents, the pharmacist did not check the patient group direction (PGD) on the vaccine “before the patient’s appointment”.
The regulator acknowledged that the misconduct “stemmed from a one-off incident” and that Boahene had since “offered some apology and shown remorse”.
However, it stressed that the subject of the misconduct was a child “who has suffered direct harm”.
Numerous failures
The committee was told that in August 2021, while Boahene was employed as a locum pharmacist at a Well Pharmacy in Plymouth, Ms Person A brought her child - referred to as Patient A - into the pharmacy for a pre-booked chickenpox vaccination.
It heard that Boahene did not check “the patient’s name and/or date of birth”, explain “the risks of the vaccination to the patient’s mother” nor “obtain informed consent from the patient’s mother for the administration of Zostavax to Patient A”.
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Boahene then gave the child Zostavax, which was “not prescribed or covered under a patient group direction”, and “stuck the same needle into Patient A’s arm a few times causing Patient A to cry out in pain”, the GPhC said.
The regulator said that Boahene also failed to check “the PGD on Varivax before the patient’s appointment” and did not “make an adequate record of their appointment”.
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His actions were outside of his “scope of competence” because he was not an independent prescriber and was not trained to administer the vaccine, it added.
The committee also heard that hours after receiving the vaccine, Patient A “developed strange red and purple spots on [their] forehead, scalp and behind [their] right ear”, and spent around nine hours in A&E before being discharged “with no lasting injury”.
“Should have been stronger”
Boahene told the committee that he “ordered Zostavax because Varivax was out of stock” and “believed Zostavax was an alternative”, and that he “was unaware of PGD and said he did not read or sign it”.
He added that the staff at the pharmacy “insisted” he give the vaccine despite him telling them that he was not trained to do so and “had never vaccinated a child before”.
But he admitted that he “should have been far stronger than he was at the time” and “should have refused to undertake the vaccination”.
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The GPhC recognised that Boahene admitted to every allegation, has “no previous regulatory findings against him” with the regulator and has “an otherwise unblemished 24-year career as a pharmacist”.
It also said that he has “obtained positive professional references” and has “undertaken training concerning the administering of the chicken pox vaccine”.
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But the regulator noted that his conduct breached “a number” of the GPhC’s standards for pharmacists and that he had “put his own interests above that of his patients”.
It added that Boehene’s “insight and remediation is limited” four years on, and that he “still maintains the position that the Zostavax and Varivax vaccines are medically the same” despite them being “different vaccines for different patient age ranges”.
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The GPhC determined that removal of Boahene from the register would be “unnecessary and disproportionate” and would “deprive the public of a pharmacist whose misconduct is remediable”.
It concluded that a four-month suspension is “appropriate and proportionate to mark the seriousness” of his actions.
Read the determination in full here.
