Pharmacist’s Methadone Safety Failings and Dishonest Records: GPhC Ends Restrictions After Successful Remediation
Date of Decision: May 17, 2019
Registrant's Role: Pharmacist
Allegations:
- Allowing untrained staff members, pre-registration students and summer students to prepare methadone.
- Failing to check methadone prepared by a pre-registration student.
- Writing colleagues’ signatures into a date-checking schedule, falsely suggesting that those colleagues had completed the checks.
- Instructing staff to sign a staff search record indicating that their bags had been searched when no searches had occurred.
- Dishonesty relating to the falsification of date-checking records and staff search records.
Outcome: Fitness to practise no longer impaired
Case Summary
Allegations
This case concerned a community pharmacist whose fitness to practise had previously been found impaired following unsafe methadone practices and dishonest record keeping. The determination dated 17 May 2019 was a principal review hearing, held to assess whether the registrant had addressed the concerns that led to restrictions on their registration.
At the original hearing, held from 23 to 25 July 2018, the registrant admitted all allegations arising from concerns about their conduct while managing a pharmacy branch. The original committee nevertheless distinguished between allegations that were proven and those serious enough to constitute misconduct. The review document summarises the misconduct findings but does not reproduce every original allegation.
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- Full allegations considered by the GPhC/PSNI
- Panel findings and reasoning
- Outcome of the investigation
- Sanctions considered and imposed on the Pharmacist
- Key professional learning points
Original Case Document
The original determination document is available to registered users.