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A pharmacist who failed to adequately manage the ordering of high-risk medicines at the pharmacy where he worked and ensure patient safety measures were in place has been warned by the General Pharmaceutical Council.

The regulator’s investigating committee said Mirrasoul Seyedi failed to manage the “stock ordering systems and operations” at the retail pharmacy in Benfleet where he was the responsible pharmacist, resulting in its “excessive ordering of bottles of Codeine and Phenergan”.

The GPhC said following “an intelligence referral”, prompted by information passed to it about the pharmacy, an inspector imposed conditions relating to its excessive ordering of the medicines.

Information passed to the inspector by wholesalers revealed the pharmacy ordered some 2,942 bottles of Codeine linctus (200ml) and 410 bottles of Phenergan Elixir over an eight-month period between February and September 2023.

The committee said an inspection in November 2023 found “a number of failures which related to the insecure storage of dispensed medication and visible patient information in the pharmacy”.

The inspection also found an “insecure environment of medicines requiring appropriate cold storage” and “a discrepancy of one item in the recording of a controlled drug”.

“Mr Seyedi’s failure of oversight adequately to manage the pharmacy’s systems and operations in stock ordering, deliveries, risk assessments and safe supply of codeine linctus and Phenergan Elixir resulted in the pharmacy ordering unusually large amounts of the medication without accountability,” the committee said.

Although there was no evidence of inappropriate supply to patients, Seyedi was found to have breached three standards covering pharmacy professionals providing person-centred care, respecting and maintaining a person’s confidentiality and privacy and demonstrating leadership.

The committee said: “Failing to have in place systems that are sufficient to protect patients or failure to observe such systems is a serious matter.”

It said Seyedi had “accepted the failures” and “demonstrated that improvements to the pharmacy systems have been made” and had since met “all the standards at the last GPhC inspection”. His warning will be published on the register for 12 months.