Robert Davies, registration number 2019028, has received a one-month suspension from the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) for referring to a patient – known as patient A – as a “nutter” while on the phone to them.
In a remote hearing on February 17-18, the committee heard that the registrant “received a telephone call from patient A to discuss her prescription and during the call [he] referred to her as a ‘nutter’”.
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When challenged by the patient, Davies allegedly “denied using the work ‘nutter’”, the hearing document said, and when asked “if they were going to apologise [he] declined to do so”.
The regulator accepted that the registrant had “no previous fitness to practise concerns”.
But it stressed that he “was aware of [the patient’s] vulnerability” yet “denied his actions” and “refused to apologise”.
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Davies was working as a locum pharmacist at Knights Willaston Pharmacy in Merseyside in January 2023 when he received a call from patient A – “who suffered from chronic PTSD and chronic anxiety” – explaining that she was “having difficulty in securing her prescription medication”, the council heard.
This was the second time the patient had called that day and according to the hearing document, she was “complaining [about] the level of service she had received” from the pharmacy.
“Refused to apologise”
It was during this call that the registrant allegedly “used the term ‘nutter’” and then denied doing so when “challenged by patient A”, it said, adding that he later “refused to apologise” for his actions.
But in an email to the council in May last year, the registrant said that “the patient overheard the word ‘nutter’ and assumed it referred to herself, [but] it was actually directed at the dispenser who was still trying to access the correct patient’s record” to find her prescription.
“I have had over 52 years of unblemished service in community pharmacy and would never treat a patient in the way suggested,” Davies wrote.
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The committee, however, heard a recording of the call between the registrant and patient A and found that “on a balance of probabilities, the registrant was referring to patient A” as a “nutter”.
Among other things, the fact that patient A was “raising a complaint” during her phone call “indicates that the term was directed towards [her]” rather than a pharmacy colleague, it found.
The recording also proved that Davies “denied use of the word ‘nutter’” and refused to apologise “on two occasions”, the document said.
“Lack of integrity”
The GPhC accepted that the registrant “has no previous fitness to practise concerns”.
But it stressed that his actions “[fell] short of what would be proper in the circumstances and would be regarded as deplorable by fellow practitioners”.
“The Committee considers that the Registrant’s conduct and behaviour has breached more than one of the fundamental principles of the profession of pharmacy, namely the failure to treat everyone with respect and dignity, a lack of integrity, and a failure to apologise, especially where the patient in question was vulnerable,” it said.
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And the regulator said that Davies’ behaviour “presented an actual risk of harm to patients” and that his “misconduct has brought the profession of pharmacy into disrepute”.
The GPhC found that his fitness to practise was “impaired” and decided that “taking no action or imposing a warning [was] insufficient to protect the public”.
It concluded that “a suspension for a period of one month is appropriate and proportionate to mark the seriousness of the registrant’s actions”.
Read the determination in full here.
