Pharmacy is a highly regulated profession and occasionally pharmacists may face prosecution. Prosecuting pharmacists for dispensing errors has always been a rare case. The 2009 Elizabeth Lee case with a suspended 3-month prison sentence shook the confidence of pharmacists, due to the raised risk of a prison sentence when a dispensing error occurs. The Elizabeth Lee case, although was later reduced to a £300 fine, on appeal.
Since then, the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service), in 2010, published guidelines relating to the circumstances under which a pharmacist would be prosecuted for a dispensing error. Factors to be considered are; evidence of recklessness, how dangerous the drug was, dosage safety range, resultant harm and previous error history.
What should the approach be from the GPhC- should they be stricter by creating a seemingly endless list of regulations to reduce dispensing errors or should they perhaps be more open minded leaving pharmacist free to decide, and focus their attention on outcome-based regulation?
There is not much guidance relating to the selling of e-cigarettes by pharmacies, for example. The GPhC’s only stipulation is that patients need to have sufficient information to make an informed choice. If pharmacists do choose to sell these unregulated products now, future health risks that may come to light could require them to prove to the GPhC that they were protecting the wellbeing of their patients, during that time.
A new draft legislation by the Department of Health, through the Rebalancing of Medicines Legislation and Pharmacy Regulation Programme Board will hope to be enacted early in 2015. It will include a defence for pharmacists acting in good faith, but not cover reckless errors in dispensing.
Although the regulations relating to the prosecution of pharmacists for dispensing errors, have been helpfully defined more clearly since 2009, the onus still rests on Pharmacists to dispense accurately, ethically and to “do the right thing”.