Dharmesh Nilesh Bhagat, registration number 2229853, received a three-month suspension from the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) over his involvement in the “regular supply of controlled drugs abroad” and for writing “misleading” customs declaration labels.
At hearings between January 21 and September 8, the GPhC’s fitness-to-practise committee heard that the controlled drugs were supplied abroad “without any of the requisite safeguards in place”.
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And according to the hearing document, Bhagat had “turned a blind eye” to the issues surrounding Healthinfoservices Limited, the online prescribing service that the pharmacy he worked at was dispensing for.
The committee acknowledged that at the time of his involvement, Bhagat had only recently qualified.
But it stressed the repetitive nature of his conduct as an aggravating factor in the case.
Under inspection
The GPhC said Bhagat was working as the second pharmacist at Lords Dispensing Chemist in Barking between January and December 2022, and had acted as the responsible pharmacist on 20 occasions in 2022.
It added that a GPhC inspector attended the pharmacy on December 20, 2022 to “investigate the possibility that the pharmacy was involved in the supply of various medications including controlled drugs” to the US.
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The inspector “discovered multiple packages of controlled drugs outside of the controlled drugs cabinet in the dispensary area”, as well as “a large volume” of expired and returned controlled drugs and methadone stored “under a workbench”.
Also found during the inspection were postage bags and prescriptions labelled to be sent to the US, containing “mainly schedule 4 and 5” controlled drugs.
The inspector said some of these packages had customs labels that described the contents as “health supplements”, and that Bhagat said he had labelled them this way “having been told to by HealthInfoServices”.
Thousands of items prescribed
Following the inspection, a GPhC administrator analysed the pharmacy’s prescription data and found that “approximately 732 patients in 11 countries” were being served by the online prescribing service, with “approximately 3,499 items” prescribed between January and December 2022.
The committee heard that “all the prescriptions seen in the pharmacy on the day had been issued by an EU prescriber who was based in Bulgaria”, and that the online service “was not registered with any UK regulator”.
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It was also shown extracts from the inspector’s notebook, which included notes saying that Bhagat “[hadn’t] done any audits and risk assessments”, had “no standard operating procedures” and did not have a contract or service level agreement in his possession.
The GPhC said later checks revealed that the pharmacy’s superintendent, referred to as HP, was the registered director of Healthinfoservices Limited and that its registered address was that of the pharmacy.
“No effective steps” taken
According to the regulator, Bhagat admitted to knowing that the pharmacy was “engaged in dispensing and supplying medication prescribed” by Healthinfoservices Limited, “including controlled drugs and including to overseas patients”.
It found that he took “no or no effective steps” to ensure the supply of controlled drugs overseas was conducted “safely or legally”, and that no audits were carried out “to determine the suitability of the prescribing”.
It also noted that there were no records justifying the prescriptions issued and no information to suggest that patient identification checks had been carried out.
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And despite opioids and sleeping tablets being among the medications supplied, the committee found no evidence to show how patients were safeguarded against drugs that are “highly addictive and subjected to abuse”, nor any “specific standard operating procedures in place for the dispensing service”.
The pharmacy also possessed no export license, it said.
“Power dynamic”
The committee said Bhagat’s involvement was “relatively limited” as the online prescribing service was being run by HP, the pharmacy’s superintendent at the time.
It acknowledged the “power dynamic” between Bhagat and HP, a “long-term mentor” for whom Bhagat had previously worked as a pharmacy technician for 13 years.
The regulator also considered that Bhagat did not make any financial gain from his actions and gave weight to his insight, remediation and lack of misconduct over the past four years, as well as his positive testimonials and CPD.
“Significant risk of harm”
But it stressed the duration of the misconduct and the quantity of medication supplied by the online prescribing service.
It also highlighted Bhagat’s failure to raise concerns when acting as the responsible pharmacist, and the “significant risk of harm” posed by the lack of safeguards involved in his prescribing.
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The committee concluded that public interest “demanded no lesser sanction than suspension”, but said it “should be for a relatively short period of time given the mitigating factors” of the case.
It handed Bhagat a suspension of three months and said this would “send a clear message” that the regulator takes his “dishonesty and involvement in the dangerous online prescribing service extremely seriously”.
Read the determination in full here.
