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Time-Delayed Safe Mandate for Community Pharmacies Now in Effect Following Approval of Updated Policies

Posted:Mar 24th, 2023
Read Time: < 1 Min Read
Category:News

At its March 21 meeting, the Board of Directors approved updates to the Designated Manager – Medication Procurement and Inventory Management Policy that now requires all community pharmacies to use time-delayed safes for securing narcotics. Community pharmacies must take immediate steps to procure a time-delayed safe or retrofit an existing safe with a time-delay mechanism if one has not already been installed.

The College’s Board of Directors previously approved the development of a province-wide approach that would require the use of time-delayed safes in all community pharmacies. Policies approved at the March 21 Board meeting have now made a time-delayed safes mandate in Ontario community pharmacies a reality.

The universal use of time-delayed safes, along with signage and other public awareness efforts, has proven to be an effective robbery deterrent in other jurisdictions such as British Columbia and Alberta. Saskatchewan is also set to move forward with a similar requirement. In Ontario, the province-wide use of time-delayed safes is strongly supported by the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, local police departments, the Ontario Pharmacists Association, and various corporate and independent pharmacy stakeholders.

More information can be found on the College’s Pharmacy Safety Initiative page. Registrants, including Designated Managers, can find additional information in recent direct College communications.

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