Joshua Dylan Mistry, registration number 2226203, has been given a warning by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) for “[obtaining] a patient’s contact details through their medical records” and sending them an “unsolicited message via social media”.
A hearing document from last month (February 20) revealed that while working as a pharmacist at Popsons Chemist in Northamptonshire, the registrant acted in a way that breached confidentially and abused his “position of trust”.
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A fitness-to-practise (FtP) committee found that the alleged message “was not sexually explicit” but stressed that it “crossed appropriate professional boundaries”.
Mistry’s actions “have the potential to cause harm to patient wellbeing”, the regulator said, adding that “there is evidence his actions on this occasion caused both anxiety and inconvenience to the patient concerned”.
“Power imbalance”
According to the regulator, the registrant “[undermined] public trust and confidence in the profession”.
“[Patients] have a right to expect that any dealings they have with a pharmacist will be purely professional and that their data will be used only where there is a legitimate clinical need,” the document said.
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“Mistry is warned that patient confidentiality and the maintenance of professional boundaries are essential elements of providing safe and effective care,” the regulator said.
“There is an inherent power imbalance in the pharmacist/patient relationship and such transgressions of boundaries have the potential to harm individual patients and the wider reputation of the profession,” it added.
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The registrant “must ensure there is no repetition of such conduct”, the committee stressed.
And the regulator issued Mistry with a warning which “will appear on the public facing register for a period of 12 months”.
Read the determination in full here.
