The Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland has accepted an Antrim pharmacist’s application to voluntarily leave the register after establishing that he manufactured and supplied unlicensed medicines including nappy ointment and a product called “The Tonic” without keeping appropriate records. 

Details of Michael Dorman’s August FtP hearing were published on the PSNI website this week. Mr Dorman, the ex-superintendent pharmacist at Dorman Healthcare Limited in Larne, told a fitness to practise hearing this year that at the age of 71 and after selling the business, he did not intend to remain on the register.

The hearing established that on and between January 1, 2020 and January 13, 2022, he had “caused, allowed or permitted” unlicensed medicines to be manufactured and supplied from the pharmacy without keeping records of their manufacture, contrary to the PSNI’s professional standards. 

The products in question were one referred to as “The Tonic,” a nappy ointment, Japanese 35% Peppermint Oil Cream and a product named Hack Cream. 

The hearing followed an inspection in January 2022, where it was revealed “that a number of unlicensed medicines were being extemporaneously manufactured in the pharmacy,” with manufacturing records not matching the sales records kept at the pharmacy.

Sales records showed that 1,511 bottles of The Tonic had been sold with only 120 manufacturing records made, while 45 units of the nappy ointment had been sold with no manufacturing records kept. 

Mr Dorman admitted to each of the allegations against him after co-operating with the investigation and ceasing the manufacture of all nostrums within “about two weeks” of the inspector’s visit. 

The FtP committee cited as an aggravating factor the fact that previous inspections in 2012 and 2014 had also identified issues around records of these on-the-spot preparations. 

However, the committee also noted that Mr Dorman has had a “long and successful career” during which he served his local community, and that the sale of these products caused no adverse harm to patients.

The PSNI accepted Mr Dorman’s undertakings, which in addition to leaving the register included a commitment not to “have any involvement” in the provision of regulated pharmacy services and to inform the registrar should he change his mind and wish to apply to re-join the register. 

“Given the facts, the admission made, and the terms of the proposed undertakings, the committee considers that disposing of this case by way of these undertakings is appropriate and proportionate,” said the PSNI.