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A pharmacist who failed to ensure up-to-date standard operating procedures were in place for the sale and supply of high-risk opioid medicines at two pharmacies where he worked has been told to follow a number of conditions for 12 months if he wants to continue practising.

A General Pharmaceutical Council fitness-to-practise committee hearing imposed revised conditions on Mohammad Javed last week having suspended him for two months last year after he admitted failures in governance while working as the superintendent pharmacist of Your Prescriptions Ltd and Al Shafa Pharmacy and the responsible pharmacist at the former.

A principal hearing found he failed to have in a place “an adequate system to monitor and/or audit the ordering of codeine linctus and/or phenergan elixir which are high risk medicines liable to misuse, overuse and abuse including by mixing together”.

It heard Javed ordered and/or allowed 300 28-tablet packs of 60mg Codeine Phosphate to be ordered on around December 4, 2019 and 500 100-tablet packs of Co-codamol (30/500mg) on around June 17, 2020.

He was suspended for two months in June last year before a review hearing in August replaced the suspension with conditions of registration for six months.

Under the 12-month conditions of registration order, Javed must not work as a sole practitioner, superintendent pharmacist or responsible pharmacist, have no involvement in the ownership or management of any pharmacy, give the GPhC contact details of his place of work and anyone supervising him, notify the regulator before he takes on any GPhC-registered position and give it details of his role and the hours he works each week, including locum or relief work.

Javed was also told to notify employers or contractors, agents acting on behalf of employers and locum agencies, superintendent and responsible pharmacists, line managers, workplace supervisors, the accountable officer for controlled drugs and prospective employers of those conditions before starting “any paid or unpaid work for which registration with the GPhC is required”.

He is required to inform the GPhC if he applies for work as a pharmacist or pharmacy technician outside the UK, get the regulator’s approval of his proposed workplace supervisor before applying for any role and arrange for the supervisor to send a report to the GPhC on his progress “in relation to the safe management of risks associated with high-risk medicines”.

The committee concluded suspension was “disproportionate given the limited remaining risk to the public” and noted Javed had shown “progress towards remediation”.

Image: The General Pharmaceutical Council is based at Canry Wharf.