Regulation oversight body launches legal challenge to a Statutory Committee decision
A pharmacist who was reprimanded by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Statutory Committee is to have her case re-examined in the High Court because the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence believes that the reprimand was unduly lenient. This is the first time the CHRE has used its legal powers to challenge a Statutory Committee ruling.
Viviane Andraous was reprimanded last month because she behaved inappropriately
after discovering £2,000 in cash in a box of medicines returned
for disposal to the pharmacy in which she worked. After other staff had
left the pharmacy at the end of the day she took the money home. She
told her husband that she had brought it home for safe keeping. He told
her that a different construction could be placed on her actions.
Later, when staff at the pharmacy were looking for the money, she did
not say what she had done, or say where the money was, even after a formal
investigation was launched.
Subsequently, Mrs Andraous admitted what she had done, the money was
returned to its rightful owner and she was dismissed for gross misconduct.
Issuing a reprimand to Mrs Andraous, the Statutory Committee chairman,
Lord Fraser of Carmylie, said that she had been an extremely foolish
woman, but not a dishonest one. She had no need of the money.
He said that if the committee had concluded that her actions had been
dishonest it would have ordered her name to be removed from the Register
of Pharmacists.
Mandie Lavin, director of fitness to
practise and legal affairs at the Society, said: “The Society has
just been served with the relevant legal proceedings. Further documents
are expected in due course. When the documents are complete the Society
will be carefully analysing this High Court referral. The Society respects
the jurisdiction of the High Court and the scrutiny that CHRE quite rightly
exercises over cases considered by the Statutory Committee.”
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