A month on from the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) effective-immediately updated online pharmacy regulations, the regulator has already received almost 50 concerns relating to weight management, C+D can exclusively reveal.
Last month (February 4), the GPhC announced that online pharmacies “cannot” prescribe based on online questionnaires alone and must “independently verify” patients’ weight and height before prescribing weight loss drugs.
Read more: New online pharmacy regs ‘effective immediately’ amid weight loss risks
Since then, the regulator has received 48 concerns relating to weight management, it last week (March 5) told C+D.
“Nine have been closed as they did not meet the threshold criteria for further investigation – details on seven of these have been shared with our inspection teams as intelligence,” a spokesperson said.
Some 36 are “in triage awaiting an initial assessment to determine whether they meet the threshold criteria”, they added.
Read more: Boots to ‘review processes’ after caught dispensing Wegovy to teen
And three have been “referred for an investigation into the fitness to practise of the pharmacy professional”, they told C+D.
“It should be noted that not all of the concerns received from February 4 necessarily relate to breaching the new updated guidance but do refer to weight management concerns,” the spokesperson stressed.
“Unnecessary” update?
The new regulations have seen mixed reaction from the sector.
Last month, the Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA) said that the newly updated online pharmacy rules “could still introduce significant risk”, adding that they do “not go far enough to protect patients”.
But the body representing pharmacy multiples told C+D that its pharmacies had already been providing weight loss drugs safely.
Read more: GPhC: Photo verification for weight loss drugs ‘not appropriate’
The Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) said that its members “have been remotely providing weight loss medicines to patients for many years with a proven track record of safety”.
Prior the new guidance, the CCA said that it did “not see the need for any additional regulation”.
And “leading online pharmacy” Chemist4U told C+D that new guidance around digital weight loss drug prescriptions “may lead to unnecessary bottlenecks and delays in patient access”.
Regulation crackdown
Meanwhile, a new Channel 4 Dispatches documentary last week revealed footage of a 16-year-old receiving weight loss jab Wegovy from Boots on two separate occasions by falsely stating she was 18 against the pharmacy’s own policy.
Health secretary Wes Streeting deemed Boots’ weight loss safeguards “totally unacceptable”, while PDA policy head Alima Batchelor described the footage of a Boots staff member handing over the drugs as “a systemic failure”.
Read more: PDA: GPhC consultation ‘watering down’ online pharmacy guidance
Boots told C+D that following publication of the updated GPhC guidance, it has “strengthened [its] ID policy to only accept official photographic ID”.
“We will further review our processes,” it added.
Read more: Wegovy: Ten deaths linked to weight loss injections, says MHRA
Last month, the regulator suspended a pharmacist for 12 months after he frequently made target-focused “transactional” prescribing decisions based on online questionnaires.
In July, a pharmacist independent prescriber (IP) was struck off from the GPhC register after issuing tens of thousands of prescriptions using online questionnaires.
And in May, the regulator hit three pharmacists with warnings after they provided “high-risk” medicine using “unsafe” online patient questionnaires.
Read more: Eating disorder sufferer takes 3 A&E trips after taking Lloyds online doctor Mounjaro
The updated guidance comes after C+D exclusively reported in June that a “young girl” was rushed to A&E after presenting with life threatening symptoms after taking weight loss drug Wegovy that she had obtained through Boots Online Doctor.
That month, Streeting revealed plans for “much closer clinical oversight and regulation” around accessing weight loss drugs from online pharmacies, saying he was “terrified that someone is going to die”.
