Report on the Supply and Management of Schedule 8 Controlled Drugs at Certain Public Hospitals in WA
- Recommendations
- 1
- Report length
- 49 pages
Summary
The report's own summary: INTRODUCTION, pages 7 to 8
Generated summary: written by an AI model from the report text and checked against the cited pages.
The Corruption and Crime Commission investigated drug theft and safeguards at two public hospitals in Western Australia.
It reviewed staff accounts, audit material, drug registers, requisition forms and archived records.
The Commission identified weaknesses in after-hours access, drug reconciliation, requisitions and register management, while finding no evidence of serious misconduct by anyone beyond the convicted pharmacist.
Its ten recommendations address access monitoring, reconciliation, separate duties, compliance checks, records, policies, knowledge sharing and automation.
In the body's own words
- Finding
The Commission investigation revealed gaps in the management and control of Schedule 8 drugs at public hospitals.
- Conclusion
There is no evidence of serious misconduct by anyone else.
Findings, opinions and statements
Allegations are not findings. A commission's finding or opinion of corrupt conduct or misconduct is not a finding that a person is guilty of a criminal offence, and the commissions say so in their reports.
No findings are reproduced in this record. This does not establish that the report contains none.
Recommendations 1
Recommendation
In order to reduce the likelihood of serious misconduct occurring at public hospitals in relation to the supply and management of Schedule 8 drugs, the Commission recommends WA Health and its poisons permit holders consider action with respect to the following: 1. After-hours access to pharmacy and safe Enhance monitoring of after-hours access to the pharmacy and the pharmacy safe. Give consideration to: (a) mandatory audits for all after-hours supply or dispensation from the pharmacy safe; (b) prohibiting after-hours solitary access to the pharmacy safe; and (c) increasing security and monitoring through technology. 2. Reconcile supply and receipt Develop and implement a practice to reconcile drugs supplied by a public hospital's pharmacy with receipt by wards and units. 3. Separation of duties Implement procedures that mandate and reinforce the 'separation of duties' in relation to each act required in the supply process. 4. Regular compliance checks (a) Conduct regular checks on randomly selected staff, wards and units in order to ascertain the extent of compliance with policies, procedures and practices; and (b) Conduct independent audits from time to time that measure compliance with policies, procedures and practices. 5. Registers Develop and implement practices in relation to registers that: (a) enable registers to be produced, without delay, in response to a request by an investigator or compulsory processes; (b) provide heightened security to the registers; and (c) audit the movement of registers. 6. Update and consolidate policies, procedures and practices Update and consolidate procedures and practices to align with the current statutory regime. 7. Knowledge sharing Implement a forum for chief pharmacists of public hospitals to share knowledge about drug diversion risks and solutions. 8. Modernise requisition and register system (a) Consider the introduction of an auditable electronic requisition process; and (b) Consider the introduction of auditable electronic registers. 9. Enhance automated systems (a) Take action to maximise Schedule 8 drugs on the imprest list; and (b) Take action to inhibit automated systems allowing a pharmacist to supply imprest drugs manually. 10. Progressively introduce automation to public hospitals Progressively introduce automated Electronic Storage and Supply Unit systems to public hospitals to enhance efficiencies and security.
Published responses
No published response was found.
Official documents 2
Report on the Supply and Management of Schedule 8 Controlled Drugs at Certain Public Hospitals in WA
Document details
- Role
- Report
MEDIA RELEASE - Report on the Supply and Management of Schedule 8 Controlled Drugs at Certain Public Hospitals in WA
Document details
- Status
- Linked
- Role
- Media release
Notes on this record
- Report type assigned by OPAX from the title; the Commission tags every listing item Report.
Coverage
This publisher
- The Commission's website has no copyright or licence page; reports carry the Commission's copyright notice (fair dealing only), so OPAX keeps short verbatim extracts with citations and links the original PDFs.
- Only the reports listing (/publications/reports) is covered. Annual reports, quarterly reports filed under /quarterly-reports, media releases and news items are not report records.
- The listing date is the date the Commission's page was created; the record date is the report's cover date or the tabling date stated on the page where one is given, and the listing date only as a fallback.
- Opinions are extracted only where the Commission states them in a sentence on a single page; opinions in older reports framed differently, or split over a page break, are not extracted (findings not_extracted).
- No text layer, no OCR: scanned reports have no extracted opinions or recommendations.