Inspection outcome: Standards met
Last inspection: 23/07/2019
Pharmacy context
This is a pharmacy in the village of Springfield, near Irvine. It offers the usual range of Pharmacy First services as well as independent prescriber clinics for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It dispenses medicines to people who walk‐in with a prescription. And to those who need repeat medicines as well as people using multi‐compartmental compliance packs. The pharmacy also supplies people with supervised methadone doses. It also offers a throat swab service to detect streptococcal throat infections.
Inspection summary findings
Principle 1. Governance
The pharmacy has some systems in place for the management of risk. Pharmacy team members record most near misses, and those that they do record lack detail of effective corrective actions taken to prevent recurrence. The pharmacy informs people on how to provide feedback about its services. The pharmacy mostly keeps the records it is required to by law. The pharmacy protects people’s privacy and confidentiality. Pharmacy team members are aware of how to protect children and vulnerable adults from harm. But there is a lack of support and training to assist them.
Principle 2. Staff
There are suitable numbers of qualified staff to provide the services on offer. And pharmacy team members can provide a range of services. They have access to a range of training materials. And they have time during the working day to make use of these to develop their skills. There is a process of appraisal to identify ongoing training needs. Pharmacy team members are comfortable to provide feedback and the owner responds to this.
Principle 3. Premises
The pharmacy is very clean and tidy. The premises are secure and there are adequate arrangements for patients to have private conversations with the pharmacist. The premises are suitably protected from unauthorised access. And they provide a hygienic environment for the provision of healthcare services.
Principle 4. Services, including medicines management
The pharmacy provides the normal range of services under the Scottish contract. The pharmacy team members use a range of safe working practices. These include use of audit trails and baskets for dispensing. These assist with the near miss process and in preventing items becoming mixed. The pharmacy has effective processes for dispensing medicines in multi-compartmental compliance packs. This includes completing accurate descriptions for medicines in the pack. This helps people identify medicines in case of queries. But there is a lack of an effective system to record requests for changes to compliance packs. The pharmacy team has some processes in place to ensure medicine recalls are properly dealt with. But there is a shortage of materials to provide extra information to patients on valproate in line with patient safety guidance.
Principle 5. Equipment and facilities
The pharmacy has sufficient resources in place to effectively provide the services on offer.
What do the inspection outcomes mean?
After an inspection each pharmacy receives one overall outcome. This will be either Standards met or Standards not all met
| The pharmacy has met all the standards for registered pharmacies | |
| The pharmacy has not met one or more of the standards for registered pharmacies |
What do the summary findings for each principle mean?
The standards for registered pharmacies are made up of five principles. The pharmacy will also receive one of four possible findings for each of these principles. These are:
| The pharmacy delivers an innovative service and benefits the whole community and performs well against the standards | |
| The pharmacy delivers positive outcomes for patients and performs well against most of the standards | |
| The pharmacy meets all the standards | |
| The pharmacy has not met one or more standards |