Client Challenges
Online Pharmacy
Client Brief
Who is the client?
A newly opened online pharmacy that employs Pharmacist Independent prescribers to prescribe and then dispense and deliver medicines online.
What do they do?
They provide specific treatments including those to aid Men's health, Women's health, and Weight loss treatments such as Saxenda.
What are their concerns?
Concerned about the noise around online pharmacies and prescribing. The GPHC has issued some very specific guidance about how to make prescribing online safer, and the fitness to practice cases have increased in the last year for Pharmacists who prescribe in online pharmacies. They are concerned about their clinical governance, and their risk assessments and would like someone with more experience in this area to provide objective advice.
Action Taken
What was the client offered?
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A GPHC-style mock inspection with a written report and action plan.
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Coaching for their Superintendent Pharmacist to support them to improve the Clinical Governance.
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What did we do?
Nabila carried out a GPHC-style mock inspection, which lasted approximately 3 hours on site. She then wrote a report and sent this to the team within a week and arranged a call to discuss and prioritise the findings.
Nabila also spent some time coaching the Superintendent pharmacist to support them to improve the Clinical Governance of the pharmacy. This included conducting a risk assessment together. Understanding more about the assurance required to ensure the Prescribers had the right skills and expertise for the activities they were conducting.
Nabila also conducted a GAP analysis on the prescribing process to help the team to understand where the biggest risks were. The team was then left with an action plan, with a breakdown of which actions were the highest priority.
Result
What was different?
The staff overall felt much more confident about the Clinical Governance. Prior to Nabila's visit, the Pharmacist Prescribers were very concerned about the risks they faced personally given the increased attention in this area.
The Superintendent had a much better understanding of risk assessments that should be conducted, and how to assess and manage these risks.
There were better clinical audit trails, documenting decision-making of Prescribers and Pharmacists, resulting in better continuity of care.
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GPHC Inspection
Around 3 months later the pharmacy was inspected by the GPHC. The team overall was much more confident about speaking with the inspector on the day. The written report showed the Pharmacy met all standards for the inspection.