The Care Quality Commission has been investigating the private online market over the past 18 months and has identified 35 companies running services in England.
Recently the BBC reported of which 13 were found to breach safety standards and 5 had stopped trading following the launch of the investigation by CQC.
The CQC’s investigation found cases where:
- antibiotics had been handed out too easily
- large volumes of opioid-based painkillers prescribed
- poor systems for responding to safety alerts warning about risks certain drugs present
- lack of checks when handing out drugs to women who may be pregnant or breastfeeding
- failure to properly check the appropriateness of asthma medication
- prescribing drugs when patients should be referred on for assessment
CQC’s inspection reports can be found here: http://www.cqc.org.uk/publications/themes-care/online-primary-care-inspection-programme
