Home Office plans another update to laws covering Controlled Drugs
Consultation has started on Home Office proposals
to update the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 to reflect modern practice and implement a proposal arising from the Shipman Inquiry.
If accepted, the plans will mean that Controlled Drug registers will
no longer need to be kept in a fixed format — either electronic
or hard copy — as at present. Instead, it will simply be necessary
to record the required information under specified headings. No substantive
changes to the information that is to be recorded are proposed, except
that electronic registers with a running balance are to become mandatory
once their use is widespread.
Another proposal is that accountable officers in NHS and non-NHS organisations
should be able to authorise individuals, or classes of individuals, to
witness the destruction of CDs, because the role of police chemist inspection
officers has changed. People to be authorised as witnesses will not be
allowed to have any role in the day-to-day management of CDs in the setting
in which their authority is given.
A third proposal is that the law relating to CD requisitions should be
brought into line with that for CD prescriptions, so far as supply in
the community by pharmacies or dispensing doctors is concerned. This
would require requisition forms to be sent to NHS pricing bureaux along
with prescriptions, so that a complete picture of CD movements in the
community can be built up.
There are also proposals to move midazolam from Schedule 4 to Schedule
3 of the Regulations (with exemption from safe custody requirements)
in order to reduce the risk of diversion or misuse and to apply safe
custody requirements to care homes, since the current application to
nursing homes is obsolete.
The same consultation is also seeking views on allowing electronic prescribing
of CDs. No specific proposals are being made at present.
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