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A pharmacist who succumbed to pressure from management and accessed patient data through a rival compounding pharmacy’s electronic portal has been issued a formal warning. 

Rizvan Batha, who was previously superintendent pharmacist at Specialist Pharmacy, which dispenses custom-made hormone medications, went before the GPhC’s fitness to practise committee at the regulator’s Canary Wharf headquarters on April 27-30.

He told the FtP committee in December 2021 he had sent a WhatsApp message to Dr A, a prescriber who worked for both Specialist Pharmacy and rival company Roseway, to request her login details for the latter company’s electronic portal after details previously used by his employer, Dr G, stopped working. 

Mr Batha admitted accessing the eRoseway portal from his home “on approximately 14 occasions” and that he “may well” have also done so from the Specialist Pharmacy’s office computers “but could not precisely remember”.

He also said he had been aware of others accessing the eRoseway portal inappropriately but did not act to prevent this. 

He admitted he felt “uncomfortable” when first asked to access the portal and that he “thought that others at Specialist Pharmacy should not be doing so”. 

Mr Batha told the FtP committee that Covid-related pressures, the lack of any formal induction when joining Specialist Pharmacy and Dr G’s style of management had influenced his decision but “did not justify his actions,” which he described as “really stupid”. 

Expressing his remorse for his actions, he said he would now feel more confident in standing up to people if faced with similar pressures and would report any issues to the relevant authorities. 

He “made clear that he would never make such a decision again,” the FtP committee noted. 

Describing himself as “passionate about the profession of pharmacy,” Mr Batha provided extensive evidence of his remediation efforts, including several examples of CPD focusing on professional ethics and data protection. 

The FtP committee found the risk of any repetition of this behaviour was low but decided it was necessary to make a finding of impairment to uphold public confidence in the profession.  

Deciding that a suspension order would be disproportionate, the committee issued a warning, which will appear on his register entry for 12 months.