Msagya Ltd (9012504) - Improvement action plan

The pharmacy’s risk assessments do not fully identify and mitigate the risks that apply to the pharmacy’s operating model or the individual medicines which it sells online. In particular, medicines which are at risk of being misused, overused and abused such as sedatives antihistamines and laxatives. It does not complete sufficient checks when selling these medicines to make sure they are appropriate for the person requesting them. And it does not have effective systems to identify potentially inappropriate supplies and signpost people to more appropriate care providers.

We will review our risk assessment in light of the issues raised during this inspection, ensuring it’s clearer with regards to when to refuse or allow sales of this high-risk group of medicines, which are more likely to be misused or abused.

We will also be checking and documenting more rigorously the info being used to refuse or allow sales, in particular for these groups of medicine.

The pharmacy is not able to demonstrate that it always gets all the information it needs to make sure it is selling medicines safely. It does not have sufficient safeguards in place when selling higher risk medicines such as sedatives and laxatives. It frequently supplies more than one pack of these medicines in a single transaction without any clear justification. And it cannot show that it makes appropriate interventions to ensure requests are appropriate when people make repeat orders of medicines liable to misuse or request large quantities of medicines. For example, 6 packs of treatment for vaginal thrush are often sold to the same person. This does not promote good antimicrobial stewardship and people with recurring thrush should be referred to their GP for further investigation.

We will be reviewing and changing the way information is being requested from customers and documented before completing a sale of medicine safely.

By doing so we hope to mitigate the higher risks associated with selling sedatives and laxatives.

If there is a need to supply more than 1 pack of the largest pack size of laxatives or sedatives or they are being requested frequently this will be checked and documented before releasing or declining these supplies.

We will also be reviewing the maximum number of packs to be allowed per transaction and note these in the risk assessment to mitigate risks of misuse or abuse of medicines being provided through the pharmacy.