TWO GPs working for a Farnham-based online pharmacy have been suspended from the profession for prescribing opioids online to multiple patients without appropriate safeguards in place.

Dr Dharson Dharmasena and Dr Edward Pooley were suspended for six and three months respectively by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), after inappropriately prescribing opioids to patients, including those with histories of drug addiction.

White Pharmacy, based at the Riverside Park Industrial Estate off Dogflud Way, supplies prescription medication to patients through an online service.

However, checks are supposed to be undertaken with the patient’s GP and their medical history considered to prevent abuse of the service.

In May 2017, the Care Quality Commission referred Dr Dharmasena and Dr Pooley to the General Medical Council (GMC) regarding their treatment of a number of patients, while the GMC also received complaint letters from GPs whose patients had been prescribed opioids by the pair.

The regulator accused Dr Dharmasena of failing to obtain an “adequate medical history” from patients’ GP records while working at White Pharmacy.

In his witness statement, Dr Dharmasena said he felt the patient questionnaire, filled in when patients place their orders for opioid medication, was “able to capture adequate information” for him to prescribe opioid medication.

But after reviewing the evidence, the MPTS found Dr Dharmasena had indeed not assessed patients properly and in some cases issued “a number of online prescriptions of opioid medication” when the drugs had “habit-forming potential”.

The tribunal concluded Dr Dharmasena had inappropriately prescribed opioids on 14 different occasions.

Dr Pooley was also practising at White Pharmacy on an ad-hoc basis between 2015 and 2017, and for another online service, The Online Clinic.

The tribunal found Dr Pooley had inappropriately prescribed opioid medication over a 15-month period to 19 patients.

In a statement, Dr Pooley told the tribunal he accepted and regretted his mistakes, which “placed patients at risk of developing or exacerbating opioid dependency”.