There are three Northern Ireland news items to report this week.
Annual review of PSNI performance
The Professional Standards Authority (PSA) has published its annual review of the performance of the regulator, the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI). Last year, the PSNI failed 7 out of 18 Standards. This year, the PSNI failed to meet 4 out of 18 Standards. In relation to one of the Standards, concerning online pharmacy, the PSA said:
“ … we concluded that the PSNI had not met Standard 7 because of the lack of progress to publish guidance for registrants on this issue. The PSNI launched a consultation exercise on draft guidance regarding prescription delivery and collection in November 2025, but this is narrow in scope and is not an update on the PSNI’s 2016 standards and guidance on internet pharmacy services. We have also seen little progress in terms of the PSNI’s understanding of the risks around online pharmacy during this review period. We therefore concluded that the PSNI had not met Standard 7.”
In relation to Fitness to Practise, the PSA said:
“We concluded that [the PSNI] had not met Standard 15 because it was still taking too long to deal with FTP cases. While the PSNI had succeeded in reducing the number of open cases overall, the improvement was largely confined to cases at the earliest part of the FTP process, and the number of open older cases remained high compared to previous years.”
Draft Standards for pharmacist prescribers
The PSNI has launched a consultation on draft Standards for pharmacist prescribers.
Possession of unlicensed medicinal products
The Department of Health reported a conviction for unlawful possession of medicinal products that, contrary to the Human Medicines Regulations, did not have a marketing authorisation. The products included unlawful possession of prescription medicines intended for sale or supply, which included, injectable Botulinum toxin type A, Hydroxocobalamin, Hyaluronidase and Lidocaine.
The defendant, a registered nurse, pleaded guilty to 9 charges and was find a total of £720.