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The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) Fitness to Practise Committee has removed a pharmacy technician from Register after been found guilty of possessing 'indecent photographs of a child'. Graeme Arthur, a pharmacy technician first registered with GPhC on 1 September 2019, under the registration number 5039154, was found guilty at Peterlee Magistrate's Court in August 2022. He received an 18-month Community Order, and is subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for 5 years, He was also ordered to undertake a period of rehabilitation activity for 40 days. In the remote video linking hearing held on 2 - 3 May, the Fitness to Practise Committee found Arthur's fitness to practise to be currently impaired on grounds of protection of the public and in the wider public interest of declaring and upholding the Standards of the profession and maintaining public confidence in the reputation of the profession. The committee considers this to be a serious conviction for an offence which has included possession of the most serious category of images of sexual abuse of children. It said: "Although Mr Arthur had no direct contact with the children concerned, the nature of the abuse is that it thrives on the demand from those who search for and view the images online. As such, children come to actual harm indirectly through the activity of someone viewing and possession of images of sexual abuse."

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has raised concerns over the rising risks related to online pharmacy services. It revealed over 30 per cent of its open Fitness to Practise (FtP) cases were related to online pharmacy, which is disproportionate to the sector of the market that online services occupy. The regulator has advised pharmacists and pharmacy owners providing online services that they should "not work with online providers who try to circumvent the regulatory oversight put in place within the UK to ensure patient safety". In the past five months, the Council has imposed seven interim orders on the registration of pharmacists who have worked for or with online prescribing services - after identifying serious concerns with their practice. It said: "These pharmacists were working as pharmacist independent prescribers for online services or were dispensing medicines prescribed online. Some of these pharmacists were the Responsible Pharmacist (RP) or the Superintendent Pharmacist (SP)."

The Fitness-to-Practise Committee of the General Pharmaceutical Council has issued a three-month suspension to Mohammed Roohul Haque (Reg No: 2226084), a locum pharmacist, due to incidents of workplace sexual misconduct. According to the determination document issued by the regulatory body, Haque undertook the position of a locum pharmacist at Hollowood Chemists on July 12. It was during this period that he encountered the dispenser (referred to as the "complainant"), a 40-year-old co-worker at the pharmacy, for the first instance. Following this initial meeting, he proceeded to engage in making explicit sexual comments. During the lunch break of the pharmacy's second dispenser, Haque asked the dispenser, who had lodged the complaint, to review photographs displayed on his mobile phone, depicting renovations being carried out at his residence. The initial images focused on the ongoing renovation activities. However, he later switched to displaying a full-screen photograph of his erect penis, the document said. Despite the fact that the dispenser promptly distanced herself, Haque persisted in discussing the photograph with her. He went so far as to apologise, and even asked if she had managed to closely observe the picture.