Medical Specialists (1104466) - Improvement action plan

The pharmacy does not always provide all its services safely. It prescribes a range of medicines including those classed as higher-risk along with treatments for conditions which require ongoing monitoring. And in some cases, it cannot demonstrate that it seeks sufficient assurances from people requesting these medicines to make sure they are only supplied when clinically appropriate. Some medicines are prescribed by solely relying on an online questionnaire. And the pharmacy does not routinely use other resources to verify the information given to it by people. This increases the risk of the pharmacy supplying medicines to people when it may not be clinically appropriate.

We have conducted a “Medicines that Require Regular Monitoring & Using Information Obtained from other Sources” risk assessment that has considered and documented improvements we have implemented and information we request from other sources, particularly in respect of higher-risk medicines along with treatments for conditions which require ongoing monitoring, such as asthma and weight loss.

We have also improved our prescribing policy for Duraphat/high Sodium Fluoride toothpaste with changes due to go live imminently. As we are not diagnosing when prescribing, we believe the changes implemented into the policy, such as requesting consent to, and informing the patient’s dentist of the supply, etc., are sufficient for this medicine and are not solely relying on an online questionnaire.