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One pharmacist has been struck off the register and two handed 12-month suspension orders over their role in the unsafe dispensing of thousands of medicines through an online pharmacy where all three held senior positions.

The GPhC’s fitness to practise committee handed down its decisions on “experienced” pharmacists Mukesh Aggarwal, Amarjit Singh Bassi and Sonia Aggarwal following a remote hearing that took place over April 20-May 13.

Mr Aggarwal had acted as responsible pharmacist (RP) and director at Homecare Pharmacy, while Mrs Aggarwal (Mr Aggarwal’s sister-in-law) and Mr Bassi had both acted as superintendent pharmacist at different times.

The FtP committee found that over periods ranging from December 2017 to October 2019, Homecare Pharmacy had made considerable numbers of supplies of drugs including codeine, zopiclone, co-codamol, modafinil and gabapentin to service prescriptions the company received from UK Meds and My UK Doctor.

Concerns were raised that patients who visited those two websites were able to access repeat prescriptions for high-risk medicines through filling in online questionnaires and without robust ID checks or adequate assessments of their overall physical and mental health being carried out.

The committee also found that some patients using My UK Doctor “were dissuaded from providing consent to contact their GP by warning them that it might delay their order”.

Homecare Pharmacy had failed to carry out due diligence on UK Meds and My UK Doctor and to seek assurance that the two prescribers were working within the relevant guidance, said the FtP committee.

It found the business had “moved into areas that were unfamiliar with the registrants” who had “placed an over-reliance on the assurances of others”.

The committee also identified a degree of possible confusion arising from the “family structure” of the business, noting Mrs Aggarwal’s assertion that she saw no risk of conflicts of interest in the fact that as SI she nonetheless perceived Mr Aggarwal as her “boss”.

Both Mukesh Aggarwal and Sonia Aggarwal have since moved out of the online pharmacy sector and provided evidence of relevant CPD completed since the events in question as well as numerous positive testimonials.

The committee found that “this was not a case of wilful neglect” on their part and that their misconduct, for which there was no financial motive, occurred at a time when online dispensing “was new and developing”.

The committee decided to impose 12-month suspension orders on both Mukesh Aggarwal and Sonia Aggarwal to uphold public confidence in the profession and in recognition of the fact there was evidence of “actual harm” to some patients who accessed medicines dispensed by Homecare Pharmacy.

Mr Bassi, who said he acted as SI “in name only,” reportedly “exercised none of his statutory duties and had no knowledge of online pharmacy,” a fact the FtP committee described as “truly shocking”.

The FtP committee said it had seen “no evidence of remediation or insight” on the part of Mr Bassi, who is now retired and was neither present nor represented at the hearing but who provided a witness statement expressing his remorse for his conduct.

The committee said that while it was “a personal tragedy for Mr Bassi that he has ended a long and unblemished career in this way” it had concluded it had “no option” other than to remove his name from the register.