The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated why the health professions regulators need to be able to act quickly and effectively in response to external changes. It is vital that we support the health professionals we regulate so they can continue to provide good care in the face of significant challenges.
Overall, we have shown during the pandemic that we can be agile and responsive (for example by introducing temporary and provisional registration). We have also moved quickly to bring in new ways of working – both in terms of how we carry out our job as a regulator and the way staff work as individuals and together.
This has been happening while we have been implementing our Vision 2030, something that has become even more important following the pandemic.
We want more of our regulatory work to be about getting ahead of issues before they happen or become a bigger issue. We are using data, intelligence and insights to help us achieve that. By carrying out targeted inspections in higher-risk areas, we are focusing our efforts on prioritising patient safety. We have taken enforcement action against online pharmacies found to be not following our guidance and meeting our standards when supplying high-risk medicines. In most of these cases we have imposed conditions preventing these pharmacies from selling or supplying opioids and other controlled drugs. We have referred a number of individual pharmacy professionals involved in prescribing or supplying medicines to our fitness to practise process.
For example, our series of online pharmacy inspections in 2021 were part of a programme of risk-based and intelligence-led inspections. These were aimed at pharmacies about which concerns had been raised, as well as those that were selling or prescribing higher-risk medicines or working with overseas prescribers.
By carrying out targeted inspections in higher-risk areas, we are focusing our efforts on prioritising patient safety. We have taken enforcement action against online pharmacies found to be not following our guidance and meeting our standards when supplying high-risk medicines. In most of these cases we have imposed conditions preventing these pharmacies from selling or supplying opioids and other controlled drugs. We have referred a number of individual pharmacy professionals involved in prescribing or supplying medicines to our fitness to practise process.
Codeine linctus is a pharmacy medicine which can be used for a dry cough. It is an example of a high-risk medicine because of well-known problems associated with its misuse, abuse or overuse.
We worked closely with the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to identify pharmacies selling unusually high volumes of codeine linctus.
We then carried out intelligence-led inspections of these pharmacies. This led us to our taking enforcement action against over 40 pharmacies, as well as individual pharmacy professionals.
Our unannounced inspections found that appropriate safeguards were not always in place to make sure sales were managed safely and appropriately.
Following these inspections, the pharmacies had conditions put on their registration that they must not sell or supply any codeine linctus preparations to anyone without an NHS prescription.