Statutory Committee clarification on meaning of “personal control”
The Medicines Act 1968 requirement that a retail pharmacy business should be under the personal control of a pharmacist does not mean that a pharmacy needs to be closed to the public whenever there is no pharmacist present, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Statutory Committee has decided.
In a decision given on 19 July, and intended to clarify the meaning of “personal
control”, the committee’s chairman, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie,
QC, said that pharmacy premises may be opened, or remain open, without
a pharmacist being present provided that nothing takes place that requires
the presence or approval of a pharmacist.
The chairman made his statement to clarify an earlier decision of the
committee in a case arising from the absence
of a pharmacist in a City of London pharmacy that had been open on a quiet date between Christmas
and New Year 2000 (PJ, 2 November 2002, p660). He said that, in his view,
the superintendent pharmacist involved in that case had been correct
in his understanding that the pharmacy premises could be opened for the
sale of retail items not requiring the presence or approval of a pharmacist
provided nothing was done that did require that presence or approval.
And, said the chairman, the Society had been correct to withdraw that
part of
the allegation against the superintendent that related to failure to
have a pharmacist in personal control on the date concerned.
The chairman pointed out that it was now a regular feature of retailing
that a section of a superstore is given over to the dispensing and sale
of items that require the presence of a pharmacist. In the absence of
a pharmacist the dispensing section is closed, but assistants who previously
worked with the pharmacist do not become instantly unemployable. Instead,
they remain free to sell perfumes, sun tan lotions and other items normally
found in pharmacies. “I cannot see why in principle the situation
is any different in a small retail pharmacy,” the chairman said.
Pharmacists might be well advised to have their premises arranged so
that they could close off the dispensary and pharmacy medicines, said
the chairman, but he would be reluctant to rule that the whole premises
should close when no pharmacist is present.
The chairman added that the Statutory Committee had in the past dealt
with cases involving temporary absence of personal control — for
example, when the pharmacist had been delayed by traffic on the way to
work or had gone out to buy a lunchtime sandwich. However, it was difficult
to rely on a vague rule whereby absence of personal control was normally
a breach but was not if it was unexpected or temporary. A pharmacy should
either close whenever no pharmacist was present or it should be allowed
to be open for business that does not require a pharmacist’s presence.
He understood that the latter was what Parliament had intended.
The chairman went on to say that nothing in his statement affected, or
was intended to affect, the contractual arrangement a pharmacist might
have under an NHS contract.
He also made it clear that pharmacists should not rely on what he had
said unless there were clear, unequivocal instructions to the staff on
the limitations on their ability to sell items in the absence of a pharmacist.
|
The
Pharmaceutical Journal