Pharmacy context
The pharmacy is on a main road in the village of Read. Pharmacy team members mainly dispense NHS prescriptions and sell a range of over-the-counter medicines. They offer medicines use reviews (MUR), the NHS New Medicines Service (NMS) and emergency contraception. They provide a substance misuse service, including supervised consumption and they supply medicines to people in multi-compartmental compliance packs.
Inspection summary findings
Principle 1. Governance
The pharmacy generally identifies and manages the risks to its services. And it keeps the records required by law. The pharmacy team knows how to keep people’s information secure. And what to do if there is a concern about the welfare of a child or vulnerable adult. The team has few team members, and as such they informally discuss the mistakes they make at the time, instead of making a record of these mistakes to review at a later date. This means they may miss opportunities to learn. The pharmacy has suitable written procedures to manage the risks to its services. But, the dispenser has not read the procedures since they changed their role. So, they may not fully understand the agreed ways of working in the pharmacy.
Principle 2. Staff
The pharmacy team members have the right qualifications and skills for their roles and the services they provide. The dispenser completes training ad-hoc. And, pharmacy team members talk together openly to manage the workload and improve ways of working. Pharmacy team members do not always establish and discuss specific causes of mistakes. This means they may miss chances to learn from errors and make changes to reduce the risk of errors.
Principle 3. Premises
The pharmacy is clean and properly maintained. It provides a suitable space for the health services provided. And the pharmacy has a room where people can speak to pharmacy team members privately.
Principle 4. Services, including medicines management
The pharmacy is accessible to people. It stores, sources and manages medicines safely. The pharmacy team members dispense medicines into devices to help people remember to take them correctly. They sometimes provide information with these devices to help people identify what their medicines look like. The pharmacy team members take steps to identify people taking high-risk medicines. And they provide these people with some advice to help them take their medicines safely. But they do not regularly provide people with information leaflets.
Principle 5. Equipment and facilities
The pharmacy has the necessary equipment available, which it properly maintains. And it manages and uses the equipment in ways that protect confidentiality.
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 |