Statutory Committee

Reprimand for making disparaging remarks about a competitor

A community pharmacist who breached the profession’s Code of Ethics by making disparaging remarks about a competitor has been reprimanded by the Statutory Committee. In reaching its decision, the committee took no account of an allegation that the pharmacist had breached a duty of confidentiality.

Complaint

On 24 and 27 April, the committee inquired into a complaint by the Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society against Sarju Patel (registration number 1072103), of Chorley, Lancashire. The Council alleged that on 5 December 2003 Mr Patel wrote a letter to Chorley and South Ribble Primary Care Trust applying for his company to be included in the pharmaceutical list. In that letter he stated that a rival pharmacy, at which he had once worked, “simply cannot offer any other additional services (such as the additional services an independent can provide) because they are already fully stretched to provide a full pharmaceutical services [sic]”. He also stated the number of prescription items dispensed in a month by the competitor pharmacy. This, said the Council, was inappropriate in that the information about the prescription numbers was commercially sensitive and had been provided without consent, that his comment regarding the competitor’s ability to provide services was disparaging and that, if the information about prescription numbers was an estimate, he had not indicated that it may not be factually accurate.

The Council also alleged that Mr Patel had given conflicting accounts of the source of his information about prescription numbers in an attempt to cover up what he had done. Following submission of his letter, he had told the PCT that his information came from his own experience of working at the competitor pharmacy. However, in an interview with a Society inspector, he had admitted inappropriate use of information obtained from a member of staff at the competitor pharmacy. And in a letter to the Society he had stated that the information was only an estimate obtained from his own direct observational studies.

The Council alleged that Mr Patel’s conduct was in breach of Key Responsibility 3 of the Code of Ethics and Standards and that the alleged particulars of misconduct, individually or cumulatively, may amount to such misconduct as to render him unfit to have your name on the Register of Pharmaceutical Chemists.

Giving the committee’s determination on 27 April, the chairman (Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, QC) said that what was alleged was that Mr Patel’s letter to the PCT conveyed information that he had obtained confidentially while working at a pharmacy with which he subsequently wanted to compete and that it made disparaging remarks about that pharmacy.

Flawed argument

Mr Patel denied both parts of the complaint against him, pointing out that at the time he was employed at the potential rival pharmacy he was not a pharmacist but only a “chemist assistant”. In the committee’s view, that was a flawed argument because all employees — not just pharmacists — owe a duty of confidentiality towards their employers. Employees may now have a right to whistle-blow but Mr Patel, more than two years after he left employment at the pharmacy, was not whistle-blowing on his former employers but seeking to disparage their ability to perform pharmacy tasks. In short, it was a grubby and flip evasion of responsibility.

His better argument, said the chairman, was one that the committee sustained. There was no evidence that he had breached any requirement of confidentiality. He wrote to the PCT saying no more than that the pharmacy did more than 8,500 prescriptions a month. The pharmacy was under that figure at the time he was employed but well over it when he wrote to the PCT.

The chairman added that Mr Patel was not impressive in that he had given varying accounts as to the basis of his calculations. These ranged from personal observations, a mechanistic calculation and guesstimate, to village gossip as to the length of time it took to get a prescription processed.

While this was not an impressive display by Mr Patel, the committee could not conclude that he relied principally or exclusively on information that he had obtained during his employment or from a brother who had worked in the same pharmacy. Mr Patel’s figure was significantly less than the pharmacy’s actual figure by late 2003. It was a particularly stupid thing to assert as he should have known that the PCT would have far more precise figures than any he could ever have calculated. Accordingly, the committee had to exonerate him from this part of the complaint.

The chairman continued: “So far as his making of disparaging remarks is concerned, which does form part of the Code of Ethics for pharmacists, our attitude is very different and we found it quite astonishing that until the last questions from the committee … Mr Patel did not concede that his remarks were disparaging.” But, even without that admission, it was difficult to conclude that his remarks were intended to be anything other than disparaging.

The chairman continued: “We also conclude that there is such a breach of the ethics incumbent upon a pharmacist that it amounts to such serious misconduct as to render him unfit to be on the Register. We will make, however, no direction for the removal of his name and restrict our censure to that of a reprimand.

Insolent young pup

“Mr Patel came over to us as an exceptionally able but somewhat insolent young pup. We trust the experience of appearing before the committee has been a chastening experience for him and that he now understands that his duties as a pharmacist extend not just to his abilities as a pharmacist in a technical sense or his skills as a businessman, but to his ethical responsibilities in line with what the Society properly required and continues to require.”