Inspection outcome: Standards met
Last inspection: 21/06/2019
Pharmacy context
This is a community pharmacy located close to the underground station for Mornington Crescent in North West London. The pharmacy dispenses NHS and private prescriptions. It supplies some people with their medicines inside multi-compartment compliance aids if they find it difficult to take their medicines on time.
Inspection summary findings
Principle 1. Governance
In general, the pharmacy is managing most of the risks associated with its services appropriately. It has written instructions to help with this. But not all members of the pharmacy team have read them. This means that they could be unclear on some of the pharmacy’s current processes. Pharmacy team members deal with their mistakes responsibly. But, they are not always recording them. This could mean that they may be missing opportunities to spot patterns and prevent similar mistakes happening. Team members know to protect people's private information, but they have not been trained on recent updates in the law.
Principle 2. Staff
The pharmacy has enough staff to manage its workload appropriately. It is going through a period of change and some members of the team are still learning about their roles and responsibilities. But, they are being supported by another local branch.
Principle 3. Premises
The pharmacy's premises are adequate to ensure the effective delivery of its services. The premises are clean and secure. But, team members are storing some stock or dispensed prescription-only medicines in the consultation room. This increases the chance of them being accessed by unauthorised people.
Principle 4. Services, including medicines management
The pharmacy sources its medicines from reputable suppliers and the team makes some checks to ensure that medicines are not supplied beyond their expiry date. But, the pharmacy has no up-to-date written details to demonstrate this. And, it sometimes stores medicines in poorly labelled containers. This makes it harder for the team to check the expiry date, assess the stability or take any necessary action if the medicine is recalled. The pharmacy provides some of its services appropriately. And, it has tried to ensure that these are delivered in a safer way following the inspection. But, members of the pharmacy team don't always highlight prescriptions that require extra advice or record information when people receive some medicines. This makes it difficult for them to show that appropriate advice has been provided when these medicines are supplied. And, they are not removing date-expired prescriptions in time, which means that medicines could be supplied inappropriately.
Principle 5. Equipment and facilities
The pharmacy has the equipment and facilities it needs to provide its services safely.
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 |