Pharmacare Chemist (1031212) - Improvement action plan

The pharmacy has confirmed that it goes through health questionnaires during the consultations for the travel clinic. But it does not always keep a record of this. So, the pharmacy cannot consistently demonstrate that it has asked the appropriate questions prior to making a supply. The pharmacy does not always regularly audit all its medicines which require additional records. Or always make an accurate record about controlled drugs (CDs) that people return to the pharmacy. Taken together, this could make it harder for the pharmacy to identify any errors or loss of medicines promptly. In addition, the pharmacy does not always record details of the CD at the top of each page in the CD register and does not always annotate amendments in the CD register appropriately. It does not always record the correct prescribers’ details for private prescriptions it dispenses, and its responsible pharmacist record does not always have the time the responsible pharmacist signed out. So, this could make the records less reliable and the specific details harder to find if there was a query.

1) For travel health consultations, a comprehensive, printed questionnaire will be filled out by the pharmacist who is doing the consultation. A record of any medications/vaccines will also be attached to the report and completed on the PMR system. This will be kept in a folder organised by date, so any queries can easily be found. This system will show that we are asking the appropriate questions prior to making a supply.
2) With regards to controlled drugs, we are going to implement the use of an online CD register such as Pharmsmart. This will ensure that the CD at the top of any given page of the record will always have the medication details. There will also be an online CD return register which we will check at the time of doing a balance check to verify that any records made have been completed correctly.
3) With regards to private prescriptions, we have now implemented a system where the correct prescriber details are always recorded when processing the prescription on the PMR system, and, if it requires, we will check the GMC register to get the full details of the prescriber when processing the prescription.
4) The pharmacist on duty will make sure they sign out of the responsible pharmacist register every day when prior to leaving the pharmacy. We have put a note on the main computer as a reminder.

The pharmacy cannot demonstrate that it stores medicines requiring cold storage appropriately. The pharmacy does not record fridge temperatures daily for all its fridges. So, this makes it more difficult for the pharmacy to show that the medicines inside are safe to use.

Recently we bought 2 new fridges for the safe storage of medicines including flu vaccinations. Given that we have gone past peak demand for the flu vaccination, we have consolidated the medications held in the new fridges into one and turned the other fridge off. We have also added a new fridge log onto the PMR system for that fridge to ensure that we are recording daily temperatures of both fridges that are being used to store medications.