PLEA News

2024-02-23 15:03:38 Changes to drug status The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2024 will come into force on 20 March 2024. It will bring fifteen synthetic opioids, including fourteen nitazenes,under control as Class A drugs under the Act. Article 2(3) of this Order brings cumyl-PeGaClone,diphenidine, ephenidine, and methoxyphenidine

2024-02-16 10:40:11 We have continued to have some issues with our emails and website, so if you have received this news item more than once, we apologise. Sexually-motivated misconduct In news items in 2022, we reported on the cases of GMC v Ahmed and Alberts v General Dental Council. In

2024-02-13 15:07:05 Several consultations are currently in progress. The DHSC consultation on pharmacy supervision ends on 29 February 2024. PLEA has submitted a response that you can read here https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:a963b6f1-27dc-4dc6-b745-0d68f624a86b The General Pharmaceutical Council is currently consulting on standards for Chief Pharmacists in hospitals and other services such as prisons.

2024-01-11 10:44:02 Coronavirus and Influenza exemptions The Health Secretary has laid draft Regulations before Parliament that would extend the temporary provisions in regulations 3A and 19 of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 until 1 April 2026. The temporary powers in the draft Human Medicines  (Amendments Relating to Coronavirus and Influenza)

2023-12-18 17:19:10 All the UK healthcare professions, including pharmacy, have similar, but not identical, fitness to practise procedures. When a healthcare professional’s fitness to practise is found at a final hearing to have be impaired then, the sanctions available to fitness to practise tribunals include suspension of registration for a

2023-12-13 17:10:23 Since the Pharmacy and Poisons Act 1933, the law has required Prescription Only Medicines and Pharmacy medicines to be sold personally by a pharmacist or for a pharmacist to supervise. The current requirement for pharmacist supervision is found both in regulation 220 of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012

2023-12-11 11:39:40 After lobbying and a recent question in Parliament, paramedics (and certain other healthcare professionals) will finally be able to prescribe controlled drugs. The Misuse of Drugs (England and Wales and Scotland) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2023 will come into force on 31 December 2023, amending the Misuse of

2023-11-06 18:42:28 Nitrous oxide With effect from 8 November 2023, nitrous oxide is classified as a controlled drug and is included in Schedule 5 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. However, the provisions of Schedule 5 that apply to other drugs in the Schedule do not wholly apply to

2023-10-11 15:02:00 2024 annual seminar – save the date Our next annual seminar will be held on 14 May 2024 in Manchester. Please save the date. We are already lining up a fascinating programme of speakers. We will post details of the programme, the venue and the booking arrangements nearer

2023-10-04 12:53:23 The use of medicine collection kiosks (described as “lockers”) came under consideration recently, probably for the first time in a British court. In The petition of Community Pharmacy Scotland [2023] CSOH 65, a decision of the Outer House, Court of Session, Community Pharmacy Scotland applied for judicial review

2023-10-01 18:33:48 On 9 July 2023, we reported the news that the Human Medicines Regulations would be amended (by the addition of regulation 217B) to allow pharmacists to supply a different quantity of a prescription only medicine to the quantity prescribed (subject to a variation of 10%), enabling manufacturer’s original

2023-09-29 16:19:32 The Professional Standards Authority has just published its annual performance review of the General Pharmaceutical Council https://www.professionalstandards.org.uk/news-and-blog/latest-news/detail/2023/09/25/the-psa-publishes-its-review-of-the-general-pharmaceutical-council-s-performance-for-2022-23?utm_source=Eloqua&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=C+D%20Daily%20campaign%20290923&utm_term=EXCLUSIVE:%20Number%20of%20pharmacies%20offering%20COVID%20jabs%20rockets%20|%20ADHD%20drug%20shortage%20|%20Get%20help%20with%20revalidation&utm_content=C+D%20Daily%20290923 . The PSA found that the GPhC met 17 out of 18 Standards. With regard to fitness to practise, the PSA foumd that the GPhC had taken steps to improve its

2023-09-22 19:14:00 Bookings for the Joy Wingfield Memorial Lecture close on 29 September, not 22 September as previously stated. In addition to joining us in person, the lecture will also be available to view by live online stream. Anyone wishing to do so should register using the same link : https://forms.office.com/e/TiP0YPjQxL.

2023-09-22 16:20:19 Bookings for the Joy Wingfield Memorial Lecture close on 29 September. Please use the link that follows. The lecture will also be available to view remotely. Anyone wishing to do so should register using the same link for attending in person – https://forms.office.com/e/TiP0YPjQxL  

2023-09-12 13:48:34 PLEA members have had a number of articles published over the Summer, including: Andrea James in Pharmacy magazine on Ethical dilemmas: How should I…support staff with long Covid? https://www.pharmacymagazine.co.uk/practice/ethical-dilemmas-how-should-i-support-staff-with-long-covid Cathal Gallagher in the International Journal of Pharmacy Practice on Measuring moral development in the pharmacy profession from undergraduate

2023-09-10 13:08:18 NHS Scotland has just published the results of a consultation on proposals, which would be actioned by amending provisions in the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978, to expand the regulatory remit of Healthcare Improvement Scotland to deal with independent health care services. In the consultation, NHS Scotland

2023-09-08 13:25:50 We are delighted to be a sponsor of the first Joy Wingfield Memorial lecture, to celebrate the life of our founder, Professor Joy Wingfield  in recognition of her dedication to the pharmacy profession and outstanding contribution to the development of pharmacy law and ethics.. The lecture will be

2023-09-06 19:43:16 In March 2023, the Government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) looked at the question of making nitrous oxide (laughing gas) a controlled drug. The ACMD noted that the number of deaths and demand for treatment for problematic use of nitrous oxide remains low compared to

2023-09-01 11:55:34 PLEA is delighted to co-sponsor the first annual lecture to commemorate our founder, Joy Wingfield. PLEA Chair, David Reissner, will be giving the memorial lecture on the evening of 9 October 2023. David’s theme will be the regulation of pharmacy – past, present and future. Like healthcare regulation

2023-08-23 20:05:36 A recent decision of the Outer House of the Court of Session deals with student fitness to practise procedures and the question of whether procedures should follow the same lines as those applicable to registered healthcare professionals. In Judicial Review of a decision of the Senate Fitness to

2023-08-08 19:01:28 In our earlier news item today, we said that the UK Government had extended indefinitely its recognition of CE marking on medical devices placed on the market in Great Britain. It has been pointed out to us that this was incorrect and the indefinite extension does not apply

2023-08-08 13:18:53 There has been a number of recent announcements regarding future changes in the law.   The Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) announced in 2019 that it intended to change the law to make it clear that pharmacists did not have to watch Prescription Only Medicines and Pharmacy

2023-07-24 12:51:49 The General Pharmaceutical Council, together with other healthcare regulators, has issued a statement about prescribing medicines of which there is a national shortage https://www.pharmacyregulation.org/news/joint-statement-meeting-regulatory-standards-during-periods-global-or-national-shortage  The focus of the statement is the problems that people with Type 2 diabetes are experiencing in accessing GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs). The statement says

2023-07-17 11:32:38 Under sections 260 to 266 of the National Health Service Act 2006, the Secretary of State has the power to place controls on the prices charged for drugs. The Secretary of State has the option of a statutory scheme or a voluntary scheme. Currently, a voluntary scheme for

2023-07-09 13:26:26 The Department of Health and Social Care has now published in draft the Human Medicines (Amendment Relating to Original Pack Dispensing (England and Wales and Scotland) Regulations 2023. Permission to supply in original packs – up to 10% variation When these Regulations come into force, they will amend

2023-06-11 13:06:04 There have been a number of announcements involving pharmacy law in the last few weeks. NHS England delivery plan for recovering access to primary care Amongst other things, the NHS delivery plan (https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/delivery-plan-for-recovering-access-to-primary-care-2/) announces: DHSC will clarify the roles of pharmacy professionals and enable a better use of

2023-05-24 15:26:40 Chemist & Druggist recently reported an open letter from a number of scientists to the Prime Minister https://www.chemistanddruggist.co.uk/CD137023/Claims-Pharmacy-First-could-fuel-antibiotic-resistance-disingenuous . The letter, published in The Telegraph, expresses concern about allowing pharmacists to prescribe antibiotics; and the risk that pharmacist prescribing will undermine efforts to manage antimicrobial resistance. A recent

2023-05-19 15:54:20 We are delighted that we are able to share some of the slides, with permission, from our 2023 annual seminar speakers. These can be accessed via our events page.

2023-05-07 19:31:24 A decision of the General Pharmaceutical Council’s Fitness to Practise Committee (GPhC) following a hearing on 4 and 5 April 2023 raises a number of interesting issues including: The approach to online pharmacy The approach to supplies of opioids and the role of pharmacists as “gatekeepers” The role

2023-04-28 17:35:15 At our annual seminar last week, Cathal Gallagher gave a presentation on the legal and ethical implications of pharmacist prescribing. He spoke about fitness to practise issues arising from prescribers who transcribed prescriptions for overseas pharmacies so that the prescribed medicines could be supplied by British pharmacies. He