Inspection outcome: Standards met
Last inspection: 25/06/2024
Pharmacy context
This community pharmacy is located on a busy main road in Paddington, West London. The pharmacy relocated from another premises nearby in January 2024. The pharmacy sells over the counter medicines, and a wide range of health and wellbeing products. A large portion of the pharmacy’s workload involves dispensing of NHS prescriptions. It also offers some other NHS services including the Pharmacy First Service, COVID-19 and flu vaccinations. And it provides private services such as travel vaccinations and ear wax removal.
Inspection summary findings
Principle 1. Governance
Overall, the pharmacy manages the risks associated with the services it provides. It keeps the records it needs to by law, and it suitably protects people’s personal information. Team members understand their responsibilities in safeguarding children and vulnerable people. And the pharmacy has written procedures to make sure the team members know what is expected of them. But the pharmacy’s procedures are not effectively utilised to make sure its team members always work in a safe and effective manner. And the pharmacy team members do not always record and review their mistakes, so they may miss additional opportunities to learn and improve.
Principle 2. Staff
The pharmacy has enough team members to provide the services that it offers. Team members working on the medicines counter and in the dispensary complete the essential training for their roles. Other team members working in the retail business do not complete any pharmacy training. This limits the roles they undertake and means they cannot provide occasional support for the pharmacy services if needed.
Principle 3. Premises
The pharmacy provides a safe, secure and professional environment for people to receive healthcare services. The pharmacy team has access to consultation rooms for services such as vaccinations, and if people want to have a conversation in private.
Principle 4. Services, including medicines management
The pharmacy’s services are generally well managed and easy for people to access. It gets its medicines from licensed suppliers, and it carries out some checks to ensure medicines are in good condition and suitable to supply. The pharmacy has procedures to help make sure it provides its compliance pack and home delivery services safely. But team members do not always consistently follow these procedures. This could make it harder for the pharmacy to explain what has happened if there was a query or concern.
Principle 5. Equipment and facilities
The pharmacy has the equipment it needs for the services it provides. The team members take steps to maintain the equipment so that it is safe to use. But fridges used to store medicines are not always effectively monitored to make sure they are functioning properly.
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 |