This month, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) revealed that Black and Asian pharmacists are “over-represented” in the concerns it receives, while there is an “under-representation” of White pharmacists.
Its fitness-to-practise (FtP) committee removed a pharmacist from the register for repeatedly giving the same patient more methadone than prescribed, and warned a pharmacist who dispensed seven times the amount of a high-risk drug to an elderly patient, contributing to their death.
Read more: ‘Reckless’: Pharmacist struck off for dispensing extra methadone
A pharmacist who made “unsafe” prescribing decisions across four online pharmacies, including one for a patient that later died of an overdose, was also suspended for six months.
Meanwhile, Pharmacy Law and Ethics Association chair David Reissner questioned whether delays in FtP cases could in fact work in pharmacists’ favour.
Read more: GPhC takes action against two major weight loss pharmacies
The GPhC took action this month against two major providers of weight loss treatments, Voy and Bolt Pharmacy, after both failed to meet all the regulator’s standards at inspection - and the Advertising Standards Authority banned ads promoting oral weight loss drugs for the very first time.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency was involved in its own weight loss drug crackdown, seizing approximately £2m worth of fake jabs from a “filthy warehouse” in Birmingham, including 12,000 fake retatrutide and tirzepatide pens.
And finally, Reissner examined whether the illegal weight loss trade could be tackled more effectively by internet service providers blocking offending websites.
