CD Incident Reporting and Destruction

To comply with your contractual obligations to report critical incidents into NHSE and all significant concerns related to controlled drugs please note the following.

Email address for Incident Reporting

Use NHS England North (Cheshire & Merseyside) email address england.cmpharmacyincidents@nhs.net for the reporting of Community Pharmacy incidents

Email address for CD Incident Reporting

The process for reporting concerns involving Controlled Drugs is via www.cdreporting.co.uk

The CD Accountable Officer (CDAO) is Devina Halsall and the contact is england.cmcd@nhs.net

Reporting break-ins, forgeries and CD thefts (all schedules):

  1. dial 101 or 999 if an emergency
  2. Ensure that you describe whether the drug is a Class A, B or C under the Misuse of Drugs Act (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/controlled-drugs-list–2/list-of-most-commonly-encountered-drugs-currently-controlled-under-the-misuse-of-drugs-legislation) since this is the terminology known to the police.
  3. Obtain the crime reference number
  4. Contact the Controlled Drugs Liaison Officer (CDLO) for your area, and give them the crime reference number. They will link in with the investigating officer.
  5. Report into cdreporting.co.uk

Controlled Drug Destruction

C&M Process for destruction of obsolete CDs for Independent contractors

NHS England Cheshire and Merseyside has adopted a new approach to the management of CD destructions, which will allow short term authorisation for destruction, once approval has been obtained from the CDAO. This process is only open to independent pharmacies where there are less than 5 pharmacies within the group.

How do I request Authorisation? 

Option 1:

  • E-mail the CDAO at england.cmcd@nhs.net to request approval for CD destruction.
  • The CDAO will e-mail you a CD destruction pre checklist and Authorised Person Application form.
  • Complete the CD destruction pre checklist and Authorised Person Application form. E-mail the Authorised Person Application form to england.cmcd@nhs.net  – this should be completed by a fully registered healthcare professional.

Option 2:

  • Alternatively you can access the Pre-Checklist and Authorised Person application form directly from the LPC website and then e-mail the Authorised Person Application form to england.cmcd@nhs.net
  • The CDAO will review the application and, in many circumstances, designate the applicant for the purposes of witnessing the destruction of the controlled drugs.

The CDAO will endeavour to process all request within 28 working days.

The authorisation will expire at 28 days and is limited to the premises to which the application relates.  (This will allow the CDs to be denatured at a convenient time, promptly and without the additional burden of waiting for a third party Authorised Person to attend).

Appendix 1 provides information on the denaturing of CDs.

Please Note that You MUST NOT act as an Authorised Person until you are in receipt of an electronic authorisation email from the CDAO.

Once you have destroyed the CDs email england.cmcd@nhs.net  to confirm that the destructions have taken place together with the date of the destructions. NHS England will randomly select a small number of pharmacies each year so that they can be visited by prior appointment to confirm that the approved CD destruction process has been followed correctly.

If you are part of a multiple pharmacy please follow your Area Manager’s or Superintendent’s process.