The Medical Defence Union (MDU) has published a warning to GPs this week (February 4) following the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) announcement that online pharmacies must have “more robust safeguards” when prescribing weight loss medicines.
MDU medico-legal adviser Dr Ellie Mein urged GPs to “not ignore requests for patient information” from online pharmacies, stressing that this could make them “vulnerable to criticism and medico-legal processes”.
Read more: New online pharmacy regs ‘effective immediately’ amid weight loss risks
According to the GPhC guidance announced earlier this week (February 4), online pharmacies prescribing weight loss drugs, such as Wegovy and Mounjaro, must now “independently verify” information provided by a patient, which could include contacting a GP.
“If there isn’t a robust system in place to gather relevant information before a prescription is provided, patients could be put at risk” and GPs could face legal action, the MDU said.
“If an adverse event arises, the relevant prescriber could be called upon by their regulator, or others, to justify their decision to prescribe,” it added.
Patient consent
With the rise of people accessing weight loss drugs privately from online pharmacies, the MDU has seen “an increase in GPs contacting [them] for advice about disclosing information”, it said.
“Some pharmacies contact the patient’s GP, informing them of what has been prescribed and asking if they know of any contradictions that might impact the patient’s prescription,” it added.
The MDU advised GPs to check if they had their patients' consent to share their information with these pharmacies.
Read more: New GPhC weight loss regs: Online patient forms must be ‘supplemented’
The union said that GPs may be faced with an issue if a patient has “misrepresented their BMI or medical history to the pharmacy”, noting that in this scenario, “it is best to check with the patient about whether they consent to the information being disclosed”.
“If the patient withholds consent, explain to the pharmacy that you’re aware of information that makes the prescription inappropriate, but the patient has not given you consent to share this,” the MDU said, adding that it will then be the pharmacy’s responsibility to follow this up.
GPs are also advised to explain to pharmacies that “a general review of the patient’s notes might not capture every relevant consideration that the prescriber may need to know when making their decision to continue to prescribe”.
GPhC guidance
This week’s GPhC guidance set out that “all online pharmacies in Great Britain will have to strengthen safeguards” in response to “concerns identified relating to unsafe prescribing and supply of medicines online”.
The regulatory body “emphasises that for high-risk medicines, [a] prescriber cannot base prescribing decisions on the information provided in an online questionnaire alone”.
“Instead, the prescriber has to independently verify the information the person provides,” which can be done “either through two-way communication with the person, accessing the person’s clinical records, or contacting the person’s GP, their regular prescriber or third-party provider”, it added.
