Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will introduce regulations to ensure that a pharmacist is always present in an open pharmacy to facilitate the sale of pharmacy medicines,

Pharmacy regulations already require that a registered pharmacy business can only operate and be open to the public, to sell or supply prescription only medicines or pharmacy medicines, when a responsible pharmacist, the pharmacist legally responsible for the safe and effective running of an individual pharmacy, is signed in. The regulations stipulate that the responsible pharmacist may be absent from the pharmacy for a maximum of two hours during the pharmacy business hours, for example to have a meeting with a general practice, attend training, or to have a lunch or a rest break. The sale of general sales list medicines, such as some aspirin and paracetamol products, may continue in the absence of the responsible pharmacist.

Case law and professional guidance dictates that the final sale or supply of prescription only medicines and pharmacy medicines requires a pharmacist to be on the registered premise, and either directly aware of the transactions or interruptible, so as to be able to intervene in a sale or supply.