A PHARMACY on the edge of the town centre has presented a "serious risk" to patient safety due to its association with an online prescription service, a damning report has found.

Inspected by the General Pharmaceutical Council on December 16, Liverpool Road Pharmacy, located next to Windemere Medical Centre was found not to have met all of the standards required for registered pharmacies.

The main issue that the pharmacy was criticised for was its association with an online prescribing service that is not registered with a UK regulator, which the pharmacy said it has since ended.

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'Significant' risk medicines could be misused

The report, which can be found here, states that the Liverpool Road Pharmacy did "not identify or manage the risks associated with the prescribing service".

As the prescribing services' website "inappropriate[ly]" allows people to select prescription‐only medicines prior to having a consultation, it was reported that the business did "not have effective checks in place to ensure medicines it supplies are appropriate and being used safely".

This left the inspector with the view that the pharmacy does "not effectively safeguard vulnerable people, and that there is a "significant risk that the medicines it supplies could be misused and cause harm to people".

'Inadequate' risk management and safeguarding

Although it was reported that the pharmacy has supplied "significant quantities of medicines which are liable to abuse or misuse", staff were not able to provide reassurances that the online prescribing service is operating safely and responsibly, or that prescriptions are always safe and appropriate.

Therefore, it was concluded that the Liverpool Road business had "inadequate risk management and safeguarding" in place, and was instructed not to sell or supply any more medicines issued by the online prescribing service.

The report also states that some information on the pharmacy's website and on the website of the associated prescribing service was "out of date and inaccurate".

Clean, secure, and appropriate environment

Despite the failures in the report, inspectors did note that the pharmacy has enough staff to manage its workload appropriately.

It was also said that the pharmacy's premises are "clean, secure, and provide an appropriate environment to deliver its services", while customers are able to have a conversation with a team member in a private area.

Pharmacy statement

Saghir Ahmed, Director of Operations and Business Development at Liverpool Road Pharmacy, said: "We piloted a service to dispense some medicines with a third party online prescriber.

"This service was stopped because we were not happy with how patients were accessing the prescribing service.

"The GPhC looked into this and stated there should be a risk management procedure. I do not contest this but stated that this is a pilot service with a registered prescriber for which they can prescribe medicines under the remit of their competency.

"I have not been given details of the issue with the website [and] all other matters with the pharmacy are to the required GPhC standards."