Inspection outcome: Standards met
Last inspection: 06/02/2020
Pharmacy context
The pharmacy is in a small shopping precinct in a residential area a few miles from Maidstone. It serves a mix of people, including a 100 unit assisted living housing complex for the over 50s, one 48 bed care home and one ten bed hospice. The pharmacy provides a range of services, including; Medicine Use Reviews and the New Medicine Service, influenza vaccinations, INR tests, Pharmacy First minor ailments scheme, smoking cessation (Champix and nicotine replacement therapy). It also provides medicines as part of the Community Pharmacist Consultation Service. It supplies medicines in multi‐compartment compliance packs to a large number of people who live in their own homes to help them take their medicines safely. And provides substance misuse medicines to a small number of people and a needle exchange service.
Inspection summary findings
Principle 1. Governance
Overall, the pharmacy adequately identifies and manages the risks associated with its services to help provide them safely. It protects people’s personal information well and people can feedback about the pharmacy’s services. Team members can protect vulnerable people. And they record and review mistakes so they can learn and make the services safer. The pharmacy largely keeps the records it needs to keep by law, to show that its medicines are supplied safely and legally. The pharmacy has written procedures to explain its processes. But the procedures do not always reflect how the pharmacy works in practice. So, team members may not always be fully clear on how the processes are meant to be carried out.
Principle 2. Staff
The pharmacy has enough trained team members to provide its services safely. They generally do the right training for their roles. And they are provided with ongoing training to support their learning needs and maintain their knowledge and skills. Team members are comfortable about raising concerns to do with the pharmacy or other issues affecting people’s safety and they have regular meetings. This means that they can help improve the systems in the pharmacy. The team members can take professional decisions to ensure people taking medicines are safe. These are not affected by the pharmacy’s targets. But the pharmacy could do more to ensure that team members are enrolled on accredited pharmacy courses in a timely manner.
Principle 3. Premises
The premises provide a safe, secure, and clean environment for the pharmacy's services. People can have a conversation with a team member in a private area.
Principle 4. Services, including medicines management
Overall, the pharmacy provides its services safely and manages them well. The pharmacy gets its medicines from reputable suppliers and stores them properly. It responds appropriately to drug alerts and product recalls. This helps make sure that its medicines and devices are safe for people to use. People with a range of needs can access the pharmacy’s services. But the pharmacy doesn't always highlight prescriptions for higher-risk medicines. And this may mean that it misses opportunities to speak with people when they collect these medicines.
Principle 5. Equipment and facilities
The pharmacy has the equipment it needs to provide its services safely. It uses its equipment to help protect people’s personal information.
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 |