Controlled drug prescription forgery risk must be addressed

The Care Quality Commission has reported that community pharmacists need a national register of controlled drugs PIN numbers to verify the legitimacy of private prescriptions, otherwise pharmacists “cannot verify legitimacy of private prescriptions and requisitions for Schedules 2 and 3 controlled drugs”. The report compared 2016 with 2017 which showed similar prescribing patterns of Schedule 2 drugs, apart from tapentadol, morphine and oxycodone which all increased. It also showed that controlled drug prescribing by pharmacist prescribers increased by nearly 100% in 2016 and almost doubled in 2017, and nurse prescribing of controlled drugs increased by 6% in 2017.
A spokesperson for the National Pharmacy Association, said community pharmacists would always check the professional registration of a private prescriber to ensure they have prescribing rights, and that “there are other signs to look out for to spot a fraudulent prescription, such as alterations, signature or writing irregularities and unusual prescribing.”