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A general practice pharmacist who “used her position to deliberately manipulate” her workplace systems and prescribe controlled drugs like tramadol to five people known to her – one of which was her partner – has been suspended for nine months by the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland. 

Geraldine McClean, who worked for the County Down GP Federation, engaged in dishonest practices to facilitate the tramadol prescriptions, the PSNI’s fitness to practise committee found in a hearing that took place between February 6 and May 15 this year. 

This behaviour, which occurred from December 2019 to June 2022, included logging into the clinical system using the details of colleagues including doctors and the practice manager to view patient records and carry out some of the relevant transactions, giving “the impression that she was not involved”. 

In fact she was responsible for issuing 20 prescriptions to family members and friends “without clear clinical indication or need,” most of which were for class C drug tramadol, in some cases cancelling and/or deleting the record on the clinical system “for fictitious reasons” before going on to “personally facilitate the dispensing of some of the printed scripts” including having them dispensed by community pharmacies in nearby Newcastle.

Numerous prescriptions for Maxitram were made to her partner, referred to as Patient A, including instances where there was “clear evidence of oversupply” as the prescriptions were “not based on necessity”.

Ms McClean “failed to keep proper records of her prescribing activities, recorded GP authorisation for prescribing decisions that she alone had made and created false and misleading entries in the GP clinical system,” the FtP committee found.

Describing the misconduct as “intentional rather than reckless” and involving “a huge amount of concealment,” the committee found that rather than making “clinical mistakes” she had “acted in a manner which was dishonest and lacked integrity”.  

The committee found she had “used her position to deliberately manipulate the general practice clinical system” and “breached a fairly straightforward professional obligation not to treat family and friends” as well as “freely” circumventing the rules around supplying class C drugs.

Ms McClean, who had an “unblemished record” in her 20 years on the register prior to this case, provided a “very detailed” reflective account expressing remorse for her actions and the impact they had on others and acknowledging that her judgment had been “skewed”. 

She also revealed she has undertaken CPD to address her behaviour as well as speaking to a therapist to address underlying factors “that contributed to her making certain professional decisions”. 

However, the FtP committee did not consider she had shown sufficient insight into how her actions impacted other healthcare professionals, noting that she had failed to explain to workplace investigators “exactly what she had done”. 

This meant a “very detailed and complex investigation” was required, with some matters still not fully explained.

She was given a nine-month suspension order and told she must undertake training and practical activities before the order lapses to address the impact of her actions on "fellow professionals, patients and the public as a whole". 

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