Pharmacist Rizvan Faruk Batha, registration number 2080291, was warned by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) after viewing “confidential patient data” on a competing pharmacy’s online system “without authority to do so”.
In hearings between April 27 and 30, the GPhC’s fitness-to-practise committee heard that Batha “obtained and used” login details for Roseway Laboratories while working at Specialist Pharmacy.
According to the hearing document, the login details belonged to a former colleague and doctor - referred to as Doctor A - and Batha was “aware that others were accessing the eRoseway portal” but “did not intervene”.
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The committee recognised that Batha had “an unblemished record” having worked in the NHS “for some eight years”.
But it also noted the “serious nature of the misconduct and the repeated breaches of confidentiality over a period of more than a year”, adding that the “access to information was not a ‘one off’ occurrence, but a repeated pattern of conduct”.
“Lacking in integrity”
The GPhC said that Batha joined Specialist Pharmacy, a private compounding pharmacy, as a superintendent pharmacist in August 2020.
Doctor A had also worked at Specialist Pharmacy before joining Roseway, another compounding pharmacy, it added.
Batha admitted that on December 8, 2021, he messaged Doctor A asking her to “share her eRoseway details with him” as those previously given by her to the owner of Specialist Pharmacy “no longer worked”. He then “used those login details on a couple of occasions” that month.
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The regulator heard that Batha “accessed the eRoseway portal from his home address on approximately 14 occasions” and “may well also have accessed the portal from computers in the Specialist Pharmacy” - but he could not “precisely remember”.
Batha also “admitted that he was aware that others were accessing the eRoseway portal, but he did not intervene”, it said.
The committee found that it was “more likely than not” that Batha “knew he did not have express or implied permission from Roseway or the patients” to use Dr A’s logins to access confidential patient data.
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It said Batha admitted that when he was first asked to access the eRoseway portal he “was uncomfortable in doing so”, and “thought that others at Specialist Pharmacy should not be doing so”.
But it found that his actions were “lacking in integrity”, it added.
Extensive remediation
The committee noted that Batha’s “remediation efforts have been extensive” and the subsequent “changes to [his] working environment” have “[rendered] the risk of repetition low”.
There had been “no further fitness to practise concerns” since the events in question, it added, with Batha showing “expressions of regret, remorse and apology”.
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It also highlighted the “level of insight and remediation” demonstrated by Batha, who “had commenced the remediation as soon as he was aware of the complaint being lodged”.
And it acknowledged the positive testimonials from a “wide range of referees aware of the allegations against him”.
These included a “former manager who confirmed his willingness to reemploy him” and a “former GPhC inspector who worked with [him] and who attested to his excellent clinical leadership”.
Multiple patients impacted
But the regulator noted Batha’s actions of “actively seeking” further login details for the Roseway platform “at a much later date”, as well as the fact he was aware of other members of the team “breaching confidentiality” but “took no steps to prevent such access”.
It added that there were “multiple patients” affected by his conduct - and that patients “were notified by Roseway of a data breach”, which “likely caused stress and anxiety”.
The “unauthorised access” also had an impact on Roseway, it said, which “had to take numerous steps to manage the data breach”.
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And the GPhC pointed out that as a superintendent pharmacist, Batha was “in a senior position” and “should have been a positive example to juniors”.
He had worked in the NHS for “some eight years”, it added, and so “should have been well aware of the disciplines of data governance”.
The committee decided that a warning was “appropriate” as Batha’s “remediation had a positive effect to the advantage of the public”.
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But it stressed that his behaviour “damages the reputation of the profession and undermines public confidence and must not be repeated”.
The regulator said the warning will be published on the register against Batha’s name for 12 months.
Read the determination in full here.
