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A pharmacist who obtained refunds for items without producing receipts at the branch of Boots where she worked has been suspended by the General Pharmaceutical Council.

The regulator’s fitness to practice committee heard Pantea Shahiri, the pharmacy’s store manager in Welwyn Garden City, processed £3,769.93 in refund transactions to her credit card without providing receipts between February and March 2023.

She was found to have circumvented Boots’ company policy on refunds 20 times in over a month and was suspended by the committee for two months.

The transactions included a hair dryer, hair clippers, hair styling tools, electric toothbrushes and a silicone breast pump. The committee heard the pharmacy did not stock electrical items such as Dyson or Oral-B products and refunds were processed without proof of purchase.

Uncertain the items were purchased from Boots

Ms Shahiri admitted being uncertain that the items were purchased from Boots but denied processing a refund of £499.99 to her bank card using a colleague’s till operator code without their knowledge, trying to conceal her actions and misleading a colleague about the existence of a receipt.

Ms Shahiri told the committee she could not recall anything about the refund or who had carried it out. The committee also heard that although her colleague’s operator code had been used, Ms Shahiri “had no idea how that happened and could not give an explanation”.

The colleague said she did not share her operator code with anyone and the committee heard “this was consistent with (Ms Shahiri’s) evidence that she had not known (the) code or that of any of her colleagues”.

“Both of them had confirmed the tills did not display a log-in code or a name, so it would not be immediately apparent whose code was being used at any given time,” the committee noted in its report.

It said “it was possible another staff member could have processed” the refund transaction using the colleague’s operator code because the tills did not automatically log staff off after a certain period of time. “It was possible that staff members could operate the tills using another person’s operator code,” the committee said in its report. As a result, it found the allegation was unproven.

However, Ms Shahiri accepted she breached Boots’ refund policy because her refunds should have been made to a gift card instead of her own card.

Assumed her mother had bought some items from the pharmacy

During an investigation by Boots on March 31, 2023, she admitted assuming her mother had bought some items from the pharmacy, although she was unable to confirm that. The committee heard the items could not be traced because Ms Shahiri did not process the returned items using tracking labels as required by the pharmacy’s returns system.

She was sacked by Boots on April 23, 2023 after an investigation having admitted not following company policy. Her appeal against her dismissal failed.

The committee concluded Ms Shahiri breached two standards covering pharmacy professionals behaving in a professional manner and demonstrating leadership. She said she repaid all the money that had been refunded to her.

Taking into account the continued professional development she had undergone, character references that highlighted “her work ethic, acting with integrity previously and guiding other colleagues who sought advice from her” and the fact she had worked “with no further issues” since May 2023, the committee implemented a suspension.