Owners of a pharmacy say no response has been necessary after one of its directors was suspended.
Ashdown Pharmacy, based in Forest Row, East Sussex, responded after it emerged that Dr Hashem Soozandehfar had been placed on an interim suspension order by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC).
Dr Soozandehfar, 62, is listed as a director on companies house of Ashdown Medical Services Limited, the organisation that operates the pharmacy.
His suspension, imposed on April 10 this year, came as part of the wider collapse of Hailsham Medical Group, a GP practice at which Dr Soozandehfar was a partner and its registered manager.
Dr Soozandehfar was one of three partners at Hailsham Medical Group, which previously operated Seaforth Farm Surgery and Vicarage Field Surgery in Hailsham.
The practice's registration was cancelled on April 24 this year, following a series of inspections by the Care Quality Commission that exposed widespread failings in patient safety, governance, and clinical oversight.
The two GPs who were also partners at the practice, Dr Steven Seng and Dr Nicolas Cereceda, have been suspended from the General Medical Council (GMC) register and removed from the NHS England GP Performers List.
The unravelling of Hailsham Medical Group began with concerns raised by a former staff member, who blew the whistle to regulators.
The whistleblower told The Argus they were "frightened for patients' lives".
Despite this, Dr Soozandehfar is still a director of Ashdown Pharmacy in Forest Row.
However, a spokesperson for the pharmacy said that Dr Soozandehfar has "no involvement in the company's activities."
A spokesperson for Ashdown Pharmacy said: "Mr Soozandehfar remains a director of the company.
"However, he is not active in the business and does not hold any operational, managerial, clinical, or day-to-day role within the organisation.
"As Mr Soozandehfar has no involvement in the company's activities, the matters you refer to have had no impact on the operation of the business.
"Accordingly, the company has not considered it necessary to take any steps in response to the interim suspension order imposed by the General Pharmaceutical Council."
Read more:
-
'It's like Breaking Bad' say residents as crystal meth operation enters second week
-
Thousands of drivers caught committing offences by police AI cameras
-
Charity shop closes after volunteers walk out and raise concerns about director
Dr Soozandehfar's prescribing record had previously attracted scrutiny.
In 2019, he was involved in the death of a 55-year-old patient, Nicholas Eaton, who died after being prescribed methadone at a dose ten times higher than intended.
East Sussex coroner Alan Craze described the case as a "catastrophic error" and concluded that Mr Eaton died as a result of a medical prescription accident.
