Ansar Mahmood, registration number 2057763, has been warned by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) after he took a prescription from one pharmacy and dispensed it at another “without the appropriate consent” of the patient.
At hearings between November 3 and 6, the GPhC’s fitness-to-practise committee heard that Mahmood “dispensed the prescription for methadone” from Alans Pharmacy, where he was the sole superintendent, despite the fact it “had already been part-dispensed” at Adams Pharmacy, where he was joint superintendent with his business partner SZ.
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The regulator noted that the misconduct had “occurred over a short period of time”.
But it said Mahmood had breached a number of the GPhC’s standards for pharmacy professionals.
“Severely deteriorated” relationship
In August 2024, Mahmood shared superintendent responsibility for Adams Pharmacy with SZ, while also serving as the sole superintendent of Alans Pharmacy, located a few doors down.
According to the hearing document, Mahmood described his relationship with SZ at the time of the incident as “long-standing and severely deteriorated”.
It said the patient involved was prescribed a 14-day course of methadone to be dispensed by Adams Pharmacy, with collections scheduled on six dates in August.
The committee heard that on August 20, Mahmood was spotted by a colleague leaving Adams Pharmacy with two paper prescriptions that she “did not see him bring in”.
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When questioned by the colleague, Mahmood said they were the patient’s methadone prescriptions and he “was taking them to Alans Pharmacy”.
The colleague told him he “could not do this, and that the patients would need to attend and remove their prescriptions themselves”, but he “nonetheless left with them”.
He had “seen red”
The committee heard that Mahmood admitted he had “seen red” and “intentionally picked up the prescriptions”.
It was told that when staff from Adams Pharmacy were sent to recover the prescription, staff at Alans Pharmacy “denied” having it, thought it later transpired that they did.
The GPhC noted that the controlled drugs register at Alans Pharmacy recorded the supply of methadone to the patient on August 20, 22 and 24, while there were no entries in the register at Adams Pharmacy for these days.
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In a witness statement provided to the committee, Mahmood said he accepted “full responsibility” for the methadone being dispensed at two pharmacies.
He said he was “deeply ashamed” of his conduct and “embarrassed to see how irrationally” he had behaved, adding that he recognised that his “business interests and personal circumstances are never an excuse to act outside [his] jurisdiction as a pharmacist”.
Mahmood also told the committee that he had “engaged in a process to carry on separating from [his] business partner” and had “limited [his] direct contact with him to assist with this”.
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He added that he had reduced his direct management responsibilities and spent time engaging with management groups and peer discussions to “provide checks and balances on [his] executive functions” and reflect on his previous behavior.
“I would like to take this opportunity to apologise sincerely to [the patient] and to my business partner and the GPhC for my conduct,” he said.
“Otherwise unblemished” career
The committee acknowledged that Mahmood had “demonstrated significant insight into his conduct”, as well as apologising and showing remorse for his actions.
It noted the “extensive positive testimonials” Mahmood had provided, and the fact that he had “practised without restriction” in the two years since the misconduct.
And it recognised his admission of all the allegations and his “otherwise unblemished 23-year career as a pharmacist”.
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But it also stressed that Mahmood was in a “position of seniority and experience” at the time of the incident.
The committee emphasised the “high risk” nature of methadone and the fact that Mahmood had “failed to obtain consent” from patient.
It said he failed to “communicate effectively with colleagues, which compromised the care” of the patient, and had also compromised the controlled drug register by creating “a split audit trail across the two pharmacies”.
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Despite concluding that there was “no continuing risk to patients or the public”, the committee felt that in light of the factors of the case, taking no action would be “insufficient”.
It therefore decided that Mahmood’s fitness to practise was impaired on the basis of “wider public interest”, and issued him a 12-month warning to “mark the seriousness of the misconduct”.
Read the determination in full here.
