Pharmacy context
This is a community pharmacy in the village of Woolston in Warrington, Cheshire. The pharmacy mainly sells over-the-counter medicines and dispenses NHS and private prescriptions. It also provides a range of services such as blood pressure monitoring and diabetes testing, medicine use reviews (MURs) and the NHS new medicines service. And it supplies medicines in multi-compartmental compliance packs to people living in their own homes.
Inspection summary findings
Principle 1. Governance
The pharmacy has processes and up-to-date procedures to help the team manage the risks to services. And it keeps the records it must by law. It advertises how people can provide feedback and raise concerns and listens to their feedback to make improvements for people accessing the pharmacy. The pharmacy keeps people's private information safe. It has processes available to its team members, to help them protect the welfare of vulnerable people. The team does not always record details of the errors that happen with dispensing. And so, the team members may miss the opportunity to learn from mistakes and improve services.
Principle 2. Staff
The pharmacy employs people with the right skills and qualifications to undertake the tasks within their roles. The team members receive regular performance appraisals. During which they can discuss their development and set personal goals. Many of the pharmacy team members are new to their roles and in-training. This puts pressure on the team at times to manage the dispensing workload. There is a risk if the team members don't get the necessary support and also time for training this will impact on the team and people using pharmacy services.
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 and it provides services to support people's health needs. The pharmacy sources its medicines from licenced suppliers. And it generally stores and manages it medicines appropriately. It completes date checks of its medicines regularly, so it can make assurances its medicines are fit for purpose.The pharmacy has robust procedures that the team members follow when they dispense medicines into multi-compartmental compliance packs. They provide some information with these packs to help people know when to take their medicines and to identify what they look like. But sometimes this information isn't specific enough to allow people to identify their medicines.
Principle 5. Equipment and facilities
The equipment and facilities the pharmacy uses in the delivery of services are clean, safe and mostly protect people’s 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 |