Pharmacy context
The pharmacy is in a busy commercial and residential area in northwest London. It is not open for people to visit in person as it provides its services at a distance. The pharmacy dispenses NHS and private prescriptions. It provides a delivery service and supplies medicines in multi‐compartment compliance aids for people who have difficulty managing their medicines. The pharmacy re‐located to its present site in March 2020. The inspection took place during the COVID‐19 pandemic. All aspects of the pharmacy were not inspected.
Inspection summary findings
Principle 1. Governance
The pharmacy has written instructions which tell the team members how to complete tasks safely. But the pharmacy has not kept these sufficiently up to date so they may not reflect current best practice. Members of the pharmacy team do not always record their mistakes to learn from them and to help prevent similar mistakes happening again. Otherwise, the pharmacy team member's working practices are generally safe and effective. They have introduced ways of working to help protect people and minimise the risk of COVID‐19 infection. The pharmacy mostly keeps all the records it needs to by law. Members of the pharmacy team understand their role in protecting vulnerable people. And they keep people's private information safe.
Principle 2. Staff
The pharmacy has enough suitably trained team members to deliver its services safely. They work well together to manage the workload and can make suggestions to improve services.
Principle 3. Premises
The pharmacy does not display enough up-to-date and accurate information on its website. The pharmacy's premises are generally clean and secure. The design and layout of the pharmacy is suitable for the nature of its activities and the provision of healthcare. The pharmacy prevents unauthorised access to its premises when it is closed. So, it keeps its medicines and people's information safe. The pharmacy's team members working practices help protect people from COVID‐19 infection.
Principle 4. Services, including medicines management
Members of the team do not always record the fridge temperatures to show fridge items are stored correctly. And they do not always provide patient information leaflets and a description of the medicines in a compliance aid so people have all the information they need to use their medicines safely. But otherwise, the pharmacy's working practices are generally safe and effective. The pharmacy obtains its medicines from reputable sources. And it mostly stores and manages them so it can be sure they are fit for purpose. The team members know what to do if any medicines or devices need to be returned to the suppliers.
Principle 5. Equipment and facilities
The pharmacy has the equipment and facilities it needs for the services it offers. The pharmacy uses its equipment appropriately to keep people's private information safe.
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.