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An independent prescriber who issued over 70,000 prescriptions while working for online dispenser UK Meds Direct has been suspended for 12 months by the GPhC’s fitness to practise committee. 

Abbas Samnani worked at UK Meds from October 2019 to August 2022, progressing in July 2020 from pharmacist independent prescriber (PIP) to become a clinical lead (CL) who oversaw the work of other PIPs. 

UK Meds has been the subject of numerous FtP hearings for what the GPhC has described as seriously unsafe working practices, including over-reliance on web questionnaires when making prescribing decisions and a lack of safeguards regarding high-risk medicines. 

The business was subject to repeated GPhC inspections during Mr Samnani’s employment, with enforcement action taken in November 2019 that barred the company from supplying Schedule 1-5 controlled drugs and modafinil. 

Mr Samnani prescribed for UK Meds on 70,618 occasions, 4,442 of which involved medicines classed as high-risk or requiring ongoing monitoring.

In one instance in October 2019, Mr Samnani signed off on a prescription for 100 codeine tablets to a patient who had previously placed orders for the drug with UK Meds. 

He denied having had sight of the patient’s previous orders when approving the prescription, but the FtP committee found it was more probable than not that the order history would have appeared on the patient’s profile. 

Mr Samnani was found to have participated in the company’s unsafe practices, with the FtP committee commenting that when he joined in 2019 he was “qualified, experienced and competent” and that upon taking up the more senior role of CL he was “fully capable of recognising and addressing shortcomings” within UK Meds’ operating procedures.

The committee said he was involved in “repeated and widespread failures” and not one-off lapses of judgment, and that there was a “particular severity” in the potential risks posed by his actions in signing off on “thousands of prescriptions for high-risk medications”. 

The GPhC noted Mr Samnani’s “impressive” remediation efforts, which have included developing his practice in relation to opioids, as well as evidence of his “recent good work” in the form of testimonials provided by his current employer. 

The FtP committee also acknowledged that the regulator’s guidance for online prescribing has evolved in recent years and that he would “likely” be “better supported” if he were to return to working for an online pharmacy. 

But it concluded that the “seriousness of the misconduct” set out in the findings of fact was “so grave that any less a sanction than suspension would be inappropriate”.

The committee imposed a 12-month suspension order but allowed him to keep practising during the 28-day appeal period as in his current work he poses no threat to his patients.  

This is Mr Samnani’s second suspension order, having been found in 2022 to have falsified his timesheets while working for an NHS employer between November 2018 and August 2019. 

Related: Online IP struck off after prescribing modafinil ‘off-label’ 

Pharmacist who oversaw prescribing of 85,000 drugs without safeguards can continue practising

‘Dishonest’ online pharmacist who issued prescriptions in under a minute struck off