Pharmacy context
This is a community pharmacy situated in the town centre of St Helens, in Merseyside. The pharmacy dispenses NHS prescriptions and offers NHS services such as a minor ailment service and emergency hormonal contraception. The pharmacy also dispenses private prescriptions, some of which are for aesthetic medicines and products sold through its website. And it has an on-site private clinic service provided by a pharmacist independent prescriber to treat some minor conditions. The pharmacy supplies medicines in multi-compartment compliance aids for some people to help them take their medicines at the right time.
Inspection summary findings
Principle 1. Governance
The pharmacy has written procedures to help the team work effectively. But the procedures do not always reflect current practice and do not cover all of the services provided. So members of the pharmacy team may not always fully understand what is expected of them. The pharmacy does not have written risk assessments for the private services it provides. So it cannot show how it is managing risks to provide its services safely. Members of the team record things that go wrong so they can learn from them. But they do not review the records, so they may miss some opportunities to improve.
Principle 2. Staff
There are enough staff to manage the pharmacy's workload and they are appropriately trained for the jobs they do. Members of the pharmacy team complete some additional training to help them keep their knowledge up to date.
Principle 3. Premises
The pharmacy premises are clean and tidy and suitable for the services provided. But the pharmacy's aesthetic website does not fully explain who provides the service, which could cause confusion.
Principle 4. Services, including medicines management
The pharmacy sometimes supplies medicines against electronic prescriptions that are not correctly signed and therefore not legally valid. And it does not always obtain enough information to be sure that the aesthetic medicines it supplies are being used safely. It gets its medicines from recognised sources, stores them appropriately and carries out regular checks to help make sure that they are in good condition. And it uses special packaging when it delivers medicines that need cold storage. But it hasn't tested the packaging, so it may not be effective.
Principle 5. Equipment and facilities
Members of the pharmacy team have access to the equipment they need for the services they provide. And they maintain the equipment so that it is safe to use.
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 does 'pharmacy has not met all standards' mean?
When a pharmacy has not met all standards, they are required to complete an improvement action plan, which you can find via a link at the top left of this page. We monitor progress to check the improvements are made and inspect again after six months to make sure the pharmacy is maintaining these improvements. A new report will then be published.