Statutory Committee

Pharmacist struck off for waste management offences and health and safety failures

Reprimands follow false fitness-to-practise declarations

Pharmacist struck off for waste management offences and health and safety failures

The unlicensed and insecure storage of pharmaceutical waste and a failure to comply with health and safety improvement notices have led to the removal of a Birmingham pharmacist’s name from the Register of Pharmaceutical Chemists on the order of the Statutory Committee of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

At an inquiry held on 24 April 2007, the committee inquired into the case of Rakesh Kumar Panesar (registration number 72139). Information had been received that on 8 June 2001, at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court, Mr Panesar had pleaded guilty and been convicted of three offences of failing to comply with improvement notices under Section 21 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The offences, which all related to a pharmacy at 136 Garretts Green Lane, Sheldon, Birmingham, concerned (1) remedial works to repair defective lighting and provide adequate artificial lighting to a storeroom and staircase, (2) remedial works to remove unsafe stacking from shelves, repair the shelves, replaster damp walls and ceilings and repair defective roof coverings to prevent rainwater penetration and (3) the provision of an adequate hot water supply to a wash hand basin for the hygienic washing of hands. He was fined a total of £3,000 and ordered to pay costs of £564.

Information had also been received that on 23 May 2005, at the same court, Mr Panesar had pleaded guilty and been convicted of two offences under the Environmental Protection Act 1980. The offences, which related to land at the rear of a pharmacy at 299 Church Road, Sheldon, Birmingham, concerned (1) keeping controlled waste (or knowingly causing or permitting it to be kept) on land not occupied by the holder of a waste management licence, contrary to Section 33 of the Act and (2), being a producer of controlled waste (pharmaceutical waste), failing to take all reasonable measures to prevent any other person contravening Section 33 of the Act. He was fined a total of £10,000 and ordered to pay costs of £7,800.

The committee heard that the waste management offences related to large quantities of patient-returned medicines in garages behind the pharmacy. They included more than 2,350 oral dosage units of Schedule 2 opiates, including morphine and pethidine, and more than 200 ampoules of Schedule 2 opiates for injection, including 197 diamorphine ampoules.

Mr Panesar told the committee that the waste was from four different pharmacies. His accountant had advised him to keep all medicines he was writing off for 12 months against a possible query by the Inland Revenue. The waste had initially been in a pharmacy storeroom but had been moved out to allow decorating work.

Giving the committee’s determination, the chairman, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, QC, said it was difficult to know whether or not the garages were locked. Certainly one garage was locked, but a witness had reported seeing one garage door completely open with waste spilling out.

The chairman said: “We can only conclude that the convictions reveal a lack of concern for his employees and an extraordinary disregard for those parts of the law which ought to be known to any pharmacist in the country. We conclude these conclusions are such, in our opinion, as to render him unfit to have his name on the Register. This is particularly true of the second convictions where there is nothing de minimis about the quantities of drugs kept in the garages. …

“Mr Panesar has placed great store on the contribution he has made to his profession and to charity in Birmingham. We do not doubt this. He has certainly sat on, and continues to sit on, a variety of committees relating to pharmacy and its development. I am not in a position to place any precise value on his contribution but he has an impressive set of references.

“Notwithstanding this, we can only conclude in the public interest that we should direct that his name be removed from the Register of Pharmaceutical Chemists.”

Mr Panesar was advised that he had three months in which to exercise his right of appeal. His name was removed from the Register on 24 July 2007.

Reprimands follow false fitness-to-practise declarations

A Leeds pharmacy company and its superintendent pharmacist have been reprimanded by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Statutory Committee for submitting false fitness-to-practise declarations to two primary care trusts (PCTs).

At an inquiry held on 26 July 2007, the Statutory Committee of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society inquired into a complaint by the Society’s Council relating to P. H. Freeman Ltd and its superintendent pharmacist, Peter Howard Freeman (registration number 86570). The company owned two pharmacies in Leeds — one on the South Leeds PCT pharmaceutical list and the other on the West Leeds PCT list.

The Council alleged that in August 2005 Mr Freeman submitted fitness-to-practise declarations to both PCTs, falsely representing that neither the company nor its superintendent nor any director had a criminal conviction in the UK nor had been the subject of an adverse outcome of an investigation into their professional conduct by any licensing, regulatory or other body. The information was false in that in January 1999 the company and Mr Freeman had both been convicted under Section 58(2)(A) of the Medicines Act 1968, being fined a total of £600 (plus £737.60 costs), as a consequence of which both had in April 1999 received a reprimand and caution from the Statutory Committee. Furthermore, in February 2004, Mr Freeman had received a further conviction for contravening the provisions of Section 58(2)(A) of the Act, being fined £1,000 (plus £4,000 costs) and had subsequently again been reprimanded by the Statutory Committee.

The Council also alleged that in January 2007, in response to a request for further information from Leeds West PCT, Mr Freeman had given information about the Statutory Committee reprimands but had failed to disclose the convictions that had led to those reprimands.

The Council alleged that the false declarations and the subsequent failure to disclose the convictions individually or cumulatively demonstrated misconduct such as to render Mr Freeman unfit to have his name on the Register and the company liable to disqualification.

Giving the committee’s determination, the chairman, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, QC, said that, under the National Health Service (Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2005, Mr Freeman was under a duty to disclose detailed fitness-to-practise information to the PCT. But on two occasions he failed to disclose criminal convictions. He was, however, careless, in that one PCT already knew of his 2004 convictions because it was that PCT that had instigated the Statutory Committee inquiry in 2004.

The chairman continued: “We have little hesitation in concluding that he has been guilty of such misconduct as to render him unfit to be on the Register. Indeed, he … conceded it was a serious error. Again, he has a good set of references but we are not only influenced by them. No member of the public nor any patient has been harmed by his failure to answer these questions correctly. Nevertheless, he must know that he should observe what is required by the regulations. He now has a lighter workload and he will have to be more assiduous than he has been in the past in his attention to administrative details.

“Having said that, we will restrict our sanction on this occasion to a reprimand but do not want to see him again on any future occasion. He cannot expect to be dealt with as we have dealt with him today. Similarly, we will reprimand the company.”