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The General Pharmaceutical Council has allowed a pharmacist who was suspended for three months for failing to follow professional guidance when prescribing a weight loss drug to two patients to return to practice.

The regulator’s fitness-to-practise principal review hearing concluded Henrietta Adu recognised her failings and provided “detailed insight, explicitly acknowledging that commercial convenience had been allowed to override patient safety” when prescribing Saxenda to two patients while working at Burwash Pharmacy in Hove.

Adu was given a three-month suspension by the regulator’s principal committee hearing in October last year having made prescribing decisions based on an online questionnaire in the case of one patient without adequate checks of medical history, mental health and other medicines.

Adu prescribed and dispensed Saxenda to ‘Patient A’ between September 2019 and April 2020 and failed to obtain adequate information about their health before prescribing. The committee heard Adu “relied principally” on information she received in an online questionnaire and failed to inform or refer the patient back to their GP in a timely manner for appropriate assessment.

Failed to access or attempt to access the patients’ GP records

Adu also failed to put “adequate safety-netting” in place and prescribed Saxenda when she “knew or should have known” the patient “regularly ate…sweets/cakes and did very little exercise each week”. The committee concluded her prescribing “was not in accordance” with NICE guidance on the prescribing of Saxenda.

The committee heard Adu prescribed and dispensed Saxenda to a second patient, referred to during the hearing as ‘Patient B’, “in or around December 2021”.

In both cases, Adu failed to access or attempt to access the patients’ GP records to get a “full picture of their physical and mental health and current prescribed medication” and did not request a face-to-face consultation with the patients “to adequately examine the clinical need for medication”.

Adu also failed to “adequately consider the possibility of medication dependence and misuse” in both patients.

From January 2020 to September that year, she failed as the superintendent pharmacist to ensure the pharmacy’s website “displayed the necessary distance-selling logo on each web page that offers to sell medicines to the public”, which breached Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency requirements.

Online questionnaire-based prescribing model

The committee concluded that in June 2021, Adu “oversaw an online questionnaire-based prescribing model” which did not have appropriate risk assessments or risk management policy in place for the service.

She also failed to ensure appropriate records were maintained to reflect prescribing decisions and ensure appropriate ID checks were carried out.

Adu was also found not to have “any or any adequate” insurance for claims in the US or Canada when it was required. However, the committee noted that the National Pharmacy Association confirmed the pharmacy had indemnity insurance with them but the policy did not extend to claims made in the US or Canada.

The committee heard the pharmacy "continued to supply medicines to English-speaking countries, including Canada and Australia, as well as to European countries".

Adu breached eight standards in total, having failed to prescribe Saxenda “in accordance with and/or pay due regard to the relevant guidance on prescribing” from the General Medical Council, Royal Pharmaceutical Society and General Pharmaceutical Council.

The GPhC took into account Adu’s statement in which she apologised for her misconduct and recognised she had “brought the profession into disrepute”. Concluding her fitness to practise was not impaired, the regulator also considered her assertion that she “maintains regular contact with professional colleagues and uses her contacts to get advice and support whenever necessary”.