Pharmacist Suspended After Working While Unfit and Taking Controlled Drugs from Pharmacy

Allegations

This GPhC Fitness to Practise case concerned a pharmacist who attended work as the Responsible Pharmacist at a community pharmacy but was found to have been in an unfit state through the consumption of prescription-only medication and/or controlled drugs. The incident took place on 17 August 2024 at HealthPoint Pharmacy in Bewdley. The registrant was due to act as the Responsible Pharmacist for the day but arrived late, initially telling the superintendent pharmacist that he had a punctured tyre and was waiting for recovery assistance. The superintendent pharmacist attended the pharmacy and acted as Responsible Pharmacist until 12:30pm, after which the registrant arrived and took over in practice, although he did not sign into the Responsible Pharmacist log.

The concerns escalated rapidly once the superintendent pharmacist left. A dispenser described the registrant as flustered, fidgety, pale, swaying from side to side, speaking rapidly and later “gibberish”, and behaving as though intoxicated. He reportedly struggled to carry out basic pharmacy tasks, picked up and put down prescriptions without apparent purpose, and appeared unable to register what he was doing when attempting to check prescriptions.