Doctor's receptionist dispensing drugs

A neighbour's daughter has recently been working as a temporary
receptionist in a doctor's surgery - some of the things she has said
have made my hair stand on end, and I wonder about the legality of
some of the practices:

1. There is a dispensary in the surgery from where medicines are
dispensed. The dispensary is managed by a dispenser. There is not a
qualified pharmacist present.

2. One of the jobs of the receptionists is to dispense medicines
when the dispenser is not available.

3. A patient will come out of the doctors with a script and gives
to the receptionist. The receptionist then goes in to pharmacy,
selects the correct medicine from the stocks; takes the correct label
from a printer (the act of the doctor prescribing has queued the label
to printer).

4. Having selected the correct medicine, selected the correct
label and stuck it on the packaging the receptionist then gets another
receptionist to check what she has done, and then gives medicine to
patient.

To me this obviously seems extremely dodgy - is it legal?

If there was a mistake made and the receptionist gave the wrong drugs
to what degree would they be culpable.

	#1
me@privacy.net	Doctor's receptionist dispensing drugs A neighbour's daughter has recently been working as a temporary receptionist in a doctor's surgery - some of the things she has said have made my hair stand on end, and I wonder about the legality of some of the practices: 1. There is a dispensary in the surgery from where medicines are dispensed. The dispensary is managed by a dispenser. There is not a qualified pharmacist present. 2. One of the jobs of the receptionists is to dispense medicines when the dispenser is not available. 3. A patient will come out of the doctors with a script and gives to the receptionist. The receptionist then goes in to pharmacy, selects the correct medicine from the stocks; takes the correct label from a printer (the act of the doctor prescribing has queued the label to printer). 4. Having selected the correct medicine, selected the correct label and stuck it on the packaging the receptionist then gets another receptionist to check what she has done, and then gives medicine to patient. To me this obviously seems extremely dodgy - is it legal? If there was a mistake made and the receptionist gave the wrong drugs to what degree would they be culpable.