A High Court judge has ordered the General Pharmaceutical Council to re-open an investigation into a pharmacist over fraud allegations after “grossly incompetent errors” by the regulator caused him to believe for almost a year that the case had been dropped. 

The regulator’s fitness to practise committee had identified “serious irregularities” in the GPhC assessment team’s handling of the case against pharmacist ‘R2’ – who denies the allegations against him – and concluded in March this year that its “sense of justice would be offended” were the investigation to continue. 

But in a judgement published on Monday November 25, Justice Beverley Lang quashed the decision of the GPhC’s FtP committee to keep the case against R2 closed.

The allegations against R2, which were referred to the GPhC in October 2021, were in relation to the “fraudulent sale of high value short supply medications” to overseas from the London pharmacy he owned with his brother.

R2's brother, who was suspended from the GPhC register in April 2024 for one year, was first referred to the GPhC in March 2020. 

R2's brother admitted to his role in the fraud, which “included the preparation of falsified prescriptions and the dishonest wholesaling of medicines secured against prescriptions,” according to the recent court ruling. This activity was found to negatively impact the domestic supply of "high value" medicines.

An MHRA investigation had uncovered two order forms for the antiretroviral Eviplera – whose manufacturer Gilead had stipulated that the product not be purchased for export – with R2’s name on the prescription. The products were subsequently sold onwards. 

R2 has consistently denied any knowledge of fraudulent activities taking place from the pharmacy. R2's brotherhas taken full responsibility and admitted to falsifying his brother's details without R2’s knowledge or consent.

‘Astonishing’ failure of communication

Partly on the strength of his brother’s admission, R2 was told by GPhC lawyers on September 29, 2022 that his case did not meet the threshold for investigation. 

However, GPhC staff had failed to record advice from another of its senior lawyers stating that the regulator should not accept the two brothers’ account “at face value” and recommending that the case should be considered more closely. 

It later emerged that the regulator’s assessment manager had erroneously judged the case to have been closed when her senior colleague had expressed ongoing concerns. 

Furthermore, she failed to notify R2 in October 2022 when a manager raised concerns about the status of the case – with R2 not learning until August 15, 2023 that it had been closed “in error” and would now be pursued once more. Judge Lang described this communication failure as “astonishing”.

Acting for R2, barrister Simon Livingstone argued that it would be “unfair” to revive the investigation after he had been told in an “unambiguous and unequivocal way” that it had been closed. 

But Justice Lang ruled that the public interest outweighed the fact that R2 had been treated unfairly, and ordered the GPhC registrar to conduct a “thorough investigation” into the allegations against him, potentially leading to a fitness to practise hearing if this is judged to be appropriate.

She also upheld the FtP committee’s demand that the GPhC pay R2’s legal costs to the sum of £10,750 as its handling of the case was “seriously flawed and unreasonable”. 

GPhC ‘committed to learning from this’

Dionne Spence, chief enforcement officer at the GPhC, told P3pharmacy: “We are sorry for the significant failings made in this case, particularly our communication with the pharmacist involved and the stress this would have caused him. 

“The GPhC accepts the outcome in this case and the decision made by Mrs Justice Lang DBE including the criticism of the way in which the case was dealt with following the completion of the investigation. 

“We are absolutely committed to learning from this, and we have already taken action to ensure mistakes such as this do not occur in the future.”

The Professional Standards Authority, which brought the appeal against the FtP committee's decision to drop the case, has been approached for comment.