Shocking report from the BBC's Inside Out programme regarding alleged illegal sales of prescription only medicines

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Last night, viewers of BBC One in the London area were shown some unbelievably shocking footage from the programme Inside Out. The programme, now available on the BBC iPlayer, shows a serious of undercover reporters walking into a series of pharmacies across London who stated that they were able to purchase POM (Prescription Only Medicines) over the counter, WITHOUT a prescription.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the medicines that were allegedly illegally sold over the counter included the likes of Amoxicillin, Valium (Diazepam), and Temazepam.

The BBC documentary claimed that they found nine pharmacies across West London who sold POM's over the counter illegally across the space of just a few weeks. By anybody's standards, this is frighteningly extraordinary. I really do hope that the General Pharmaceutical Council act immediately and take the appropriate action necessary, and widely expected, to protect the public and protect the rest of the profession.

If the allegations featured in the programme are proven, then it will demonstrate how deeply sickening that a tiny minority of ignorant, uncaring and dangerous individuals have behaved so maliciously and brought the profession into complete and total disrepute. Pharmacy sadly has been embroiled in too much negativity, for other reasons, over the years and the findings in the programme will have caused more poison to spill and threaten to intoxicate the integrity of the pharmacy profession.

And all this especially, when addiction to even over the counter medicines is proving to be a real growing and very serious issue. A few months ago, during my time training in the West Midlands, I had a long discussion with another pharmacist and fellow pre-reg colleagues about this growing issue. Even addiction to medicines such as co-codamol have brought misery to many people and can ruin lives. It really re-inforces the importance of pharmacists supervising P medicine sales (pharmacy only medicines which can be bought over the counter if appropriate for the patient), especially in the wake of this shocking report.

Ash Soni, the pharmacist who gave an articulate, ethical and correct explanation of what pharmacists do in the report (03:09 into the programme), spoke for the vast majority of pharmacists across these islands. I think I speak for the vast majority of pharmacists here when I say:

I agree with Ash. We all agree with Ash.