He boats of his tour managment company that "The pharmaceutical industry's loss is the touring industry's gain".
Loiacon is a former drug addict who who was struck off the General Pharmaceutical Council’s Register in 2011 after being found to have been stealing methadone. His tag line for advertising his touring company reads "The pharmaceutical industry's loss is the touring industry's gain". Indeed.
http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/hisham/Documents/RPSGB_Files_/8/8/8/8/statcominq0503loiacono.pdf
FITNESS TO PRACTISE AND LEGAL AFFAIRS D IRECTORATE
Mr Domenico Loiacono
Registration No 1078636
17 January 2005
Dear Sir
NOTICE OF INQUIRY
On behalf of the Statutory Committee of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, I
give you notice that the Committee has received a complaint from the Council of the Royal
Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, 1 Lambeth High Street, London SE1 7JN which
alleges that—
1.
You were first registered with the Society on 3 October 2003.
2.
On 7 January 2004, you were employed as a locum pharmacist in charge of the
pharmacy owned by Wekare Plc (the “com
pany”) known as Unicare Pharmacy, 19-21
Lampits Hill, Corringham, Essex (“the pharmacy”).
3.
On 7 January 2004, in response to a prescription for patient
JC
(aged 3 years) calling
for Fusidic acid H/C cream 30g you dis
pensed Fucithalmic eye drops. The eye drops
were supplied in a manufacturer’s box labelled Fucithalmic eye drops 30g.
3.1 When in the week commencing 12 January 2004 Mr Steven Ritson,
Managing Director of the company, discussed the error with you, you
acknowledged that you might have made an error by giving the wrong
product and sought to diminish the seriousness of the error by contending
that the correct drug had in fact been given.
Mr Domenico Loiacono
2
2
4.
On 7 January 2004, in response to a prescription for
SW
calling for 56 x Thyroxine
25mcg tablets you dispensed 28 x Thyroxine 25mcg tablets labelled for DW (SW’s
daughter).
5.
On 7 January 2004, in response to a prescription for
Mrs JCr
calling for Fosamax once
weekly tablets 70mg [MSD] 1 pack of 4 t
ablets you dispensed 1 pack of 4 x Fosamax
70mg tablets labelled as 28 x Fosamax 10mg tablets with a direction that they be taken
daily instead of weekly. The error was noticed by the locum pharmacist who was in
charge of the pharmacy on the following day before the Fosamax was supplied to the
patient.
6.
On 7 January 2004, you dispensed an “owing” of 30 x Sevredol 10mg (a Controlled
Drug) to
Mrs JCo
against a prescription dated 5 January 2004 calling for “Sevredol 10
mg (ten) mg tabs one or two 4 to 6 hourly as needed. Dispense 56 (fifty six) tabs” but
omitted to make an entry in the Controlled Drugs Register.
6.1 When you were asked about the omission by Mr Ritson during the week
beginning 12 January 2004 you told him that some pharmacists enter the
whole supply when the first part is made and that there was, therefore, no
need for an entry to be made when the balance was supplied.
6.2 At interview with Mr Martin Ibbitt on 11 February 2004 you:
•
accepted that you had made the comments at sub-paragraph 6.1
above to Mr Ritson;
•
explained that you had made that comment in a panic;
•
explained that the reason for the omission was that you had
forgotten to make the entry.
6.3
However, there was an entry in the Controlled Drugs Register for a supply of
26 Sevredol tablets on 5 January 2004, marked “part” against a prescription
calling for 56 tablets.
7.
On 7 January 2004, you failed to check a delivery from Unichem which included
temperature sensitive insulin.
Mr Domenico Loiacono
3
3
Accordingly, in summary, it is alleged against you that —
•
the dispensing error referred to in paragraph 3 above;
•
your failure to appreciate the difference between Fusidic Acid Eye Drops dispensed to
JC and the Fusidic Acid H/C cream prescribed for her;
•
the labelling error referred to in paragraph 4 above;
•
the labelling error referred to in paragraph 5 above;
•
your failure to make an entry in the Controlled Drug Register in respect of the Sevredol
supplied by you;
•
your failure to give an adequate explanation to
your employers for the omission in the
Controlled Drug Register in respect of the Sevredol supplied by you;
•
your failure to check and refrigerate a supply of temperature sensitive insulin
individually or cumulatively, may amount to such misconduct as to render you unfit to have
your name upon the Register of Pharmaceutical Chemists,
And I further give you notice that on
Wednesday 23 February 2005 at not
before 11.30am
,
the Committee will hold an Inquiry at the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society of Great Britain, 1 Lambeth High Street, London SE1, for the purpose of
ascertaining the facts in relation to the matters aforesaid and, if thought fit, subject to the
provisions of the Pharmacy Act 1954, and the Medicines Act 1968, directing the removal
of your name from the register.
You may attend the Inquiry personally and may be represented by a solicitor or counsel. If
you do not attend, the Statutory Committee may proceed with the Inquiry in your absence.
Any application or other communication relating to the said matters or your answer thereto
shall be addressed to me not less than ten days before the day appointed for the hearing
of the case.
A copy of the Regulations which govern the procedure of the Committee is enclosed
herewith, and your particular attention is directed to Regulation 14. I also enclose a copy
of the Committee’s Indicative Sanctions Guidance.
The name and address of the solicitor acting in this case is
Mr G R F Hudson
of
Penningtons Solicitors, Bucklersbury House, 83 Cannon Street, LONDON, EC4N 8PE.
Mr Domenico Loiacono
4
4
Mr Hudson will shortly provide you with a draft bundle of the Council of the Society’s
evidence and I would be grateful if you or your solicitor could liaise with him, with the aim
of providing where possible any written ev
idence from both you and the Society’s Council
to the Committee about one week before the day of the Inquiry.
A form for acknowledging receipt of this Notice of Inquiry is enclosed herewith for you to
sign and return to me.
Yours faithfully,
David Gomez
Secretary to the Statutory Committee Enc.
http://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/news-and-analysis/announcement/gphc-striking-off-for-repeated-theft-of-cds/11072931.article
GPhC: Striking-off for repeated theft of CDs
Repeated theft of Controlled Drugs, and the subsequent cover-up that put patients at risk, has led to pharmacist Domenico Loiacono (registration number 2057443) being removed from the General Pharmaceutical Council’s Register. Mr Loiacono appeared before the GPhC’s Fitness to Practise Committee on 1 November 2010.
The committee heard that Mr Loiacono faced nine allegations, one concerning a dispensing error and eight relating to the theft of CDs from various pharmacies where he had been working as a locum.
In most instances where CDs were stolen Mr Loiacono had poured methadone from the pharmacy bottle into another container that he was able to take away with him. On at least three occasions he had attempted to cover up his theft by pouring into the stock bottle some other liquid substance, either another medicine or, on one occasion, water, thus contaminating the CD stock.
Missing methadone
A Royal Pharmaceutical Society inspector who was investigating complaints from other pharmacies where Mr Loiacono had been working apprehended him on 27 September 2008 in the company of two police officers outside the Alliance pharmacy at Dagenham. Mr Loiacono was confronted by bottles of methadone in the Alliance pharmacy from which quantities were missing. He admitted he had extracted some of the methadone from those bottles and transferred it to two bottles, which he had taken to his car. Having admitted the offence he was later issued with a police caution.Mr Loiacono was present at the inquiry and was represented by Kevin McCartney, instructed by Debenhams Ottaway.
Mark Millin, case manager, instructed by the fitness to practise legal affairs directorate, appeared on behalf of the GPhC.
Giving the committee’s decision, the chairman, Patrick Milmo, QC, said there were some aggravating features to the case. Foremost among them was the dishonesty involved. There was also potential harm to patients in that some of the stock bottles of medicine had been contaminated by Mr Loiacono’s actions.
He added: “His conduct must have been premeditated; it involved abuse of trust and dishonesty in the context of drug abuse. There were endeavours to conceal what he had done and there were breaches of the Medicines Act 1968 and the Misuse of Drugs Regulations.”
However, there were mitigating features, and the principal one of which that had been advanced on Mr Loiacono’s behalf was ill health. (Mr McCartney had told the committee that Mr Loiacono was suffering from drug addiction at the time the offences were committed on account of a tragedy in his personal life. He had suggested that the case was a health rather than a disciplinary matter.) Also, he had made full admissions and had shown some degree of insight into his misdeeds.
The chairman, however, pointed out that evidence presented to the committee, in the form of a report from a consultant psychiatrist, had said that there was evidence of drug dependency but had not stated that Mr Loiacono was suffering from an addiction or that he was suffering from any clinical illness. “The fact that [the consultant psychiatrist] refrained in his report from using the word ‘addiction’ is perhaps of significance, as the evidence of addiction, it has to be said, is somewhat thin,” the chairman said.
Weakness
He went on: “More probably, he was not in reality suffering from an addiction but an intermittent inclination to succumb to the temptation of stealing CDs in order to stifle his emotional pain. That may be regarded as a personality weakness but we are unconvinced that it is truly a health problem.”The chairman said that on account of the level of repeated dishonesty involved in the allegations, Mr Loiacono’s behaviour had to be regarded as fundamentally incompatible with registration and ordered his name to be struck from the Register.
Mr Loiacono had 28 days to appeal against the committee’s decision before his name was removed.
