Failure to verify a patient’s identity before dispensing and supervising the consumption of the opioid Buprenorphine has seen a pharmacist issued a warning by the GPhC.
At the hearings between July 27 and July 28, the GPhC’s fitness-to-practise committee heard the pharmacist in question “did not carry out sufficient checks to ascertain that the person collecting the medication was the correct patient”.
They also failed to “follow the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for ‘Dispensing prescriptions for controlled drugs’”.
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The committee acknowledged that the actions in question related to “a single error concerning one patient”.
However, they stressed that the pharmacist had not “engaged in these regulatory proceedings in any meaningful way”, resulting in the committee identifying “a potential risk of repetition”.
36 year “unblemished” career
The GPhC said the pharmacist had worked for 36 years prior to the incident and noted their “long unblemished career” when making its decision.
It also acknowledged that in the three years since the incident occurred “no further similar concerns have been raised”.
However, it stressed that the conduct was “unacceptable and fell below the standard expected from a registered pharmacy professional”.
It also maintained that their actions “brought the profession of pharmacy into disrepute and breached some of the fundamental principles of the pharmacy profession”.
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The committee concluded that a warning, published on the register for twelve months, was the appropriate sanction.
The GPhC said that the warning was necessary to “stand as a reminder to you and to other pharmacy professionals of the importance of complying with the standards required of pharmacy professionals”.
Read the determination in full here.
