A third pharmacist has been struck off the professional register as a result of the BBC exposé of illegal medicine sales in London pharmacies.

Zahra Hussain, registration number 2049753, was filmed overseeing the supply of amoxicillin without a prescription in a BBC Inside Out investigation that aired in December 2012, the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) fitness-to-practise committee heard at a hearing on September 18.

Ms Hussain denied overseeing the supply and accused the BBC of doctoring the video footage. She told the GPhC she felt “at a disadvantage” because she had no legal representation but her requests to postpone the hearing had been denied.

The GPhC accepted that Ms Hussain is “of good character”. But her “trenchant denial” of her misconduct made it “difficult” to believe she had any insight into her action, it said.

The regulator heard that an undercover BBC reporter entered Safeer Pharmacy on Edgware Road, London asking for 500mg of amoxicillin on August 23, 2012. Instead of asking if the reporter had a prescription, the counter assistant – who is Ms Hussain’s daughter – went straight into the dispensary and fetched a packet of the drug, it heard.

It was only at this point that Ms Hussain “emerged from the back of the premises” and became involved in the sale, the GPhC heard. She did not appear “startled or concerned” that the counter assistant was selling a prescription-only medication without consulting her first, it heard.

Instead, footage of the sale shows Ms Hussain told her daughter to ask patients in the future if they are allergic to medicines and described the impact of allergy to the reporter, advising him to take three pills a day, the GPhC heard. She never asked the reporter why he did not have a prescription in the footage, it noted.

But Ms Hussain said it is “unthinkable” that she would have given out antibiotics without a prescription and maintained that the supply must have been authorised by a doctor. The pharmacy employs a doctor to see patients, write prescriptions and supply medication in some cases, she said.

"Unlikely" that footage doctored

Ms Hussain suggested the BBC edited the footage to remove parts showing the involvement of a doctor. She also suggested the reporter could have attended the pharmacy with a prescription at an earlier time, and had come back to collect the prescription and film the transaction.

But it is “most unlikely” that the footage was edited as Ms Hussain suggested, the regulator said. It rejected her claim that a doctor had authorised the sale without a prescription because she made no written record, as required by law.

The GPhC accepted that Ms Hussain had caused no actual harm as a result of selling the amoxicillin because it was a “dummy purchase”. She had worked “long and hard” to gain her qualifications and there has been no repetition of the incident, it added.

It also noted that Ms Hussain was not asked about the incident until "some nine months or so" after it had occurred, and had taken this "fully into account" during the hearing.

But it highlighted the “frankly shocking...ease” with which the reporter obtained the medicine. Ms Hussain’s actions had “showed that her interest and concern was the business for which she was, and remains, superintendent pharmacist”, it said.

The GPhC said Ms Hussain’s “rehearsed and manipulative” account and determination to cling “tenaciously to her many explanations” indicated “a very profound lack of judgment and integrity” and ruled to strike her off.

Read the full determination here.

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