NHS Thames Valley is telling people across Berkshire to verify any online pharmacy is registered before buying medicines or medical products from them. The Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust published the alert on 1 July after a sharp rise in fake websites that sell counterfeit medicines, never dispatch orders, or refuse refunds.
All pharmacies in Great Britain, even those operating solely online, must be registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) and meet their standards. Residents can check a site against the regulator’s register at www.pharmacyregulation.org/registers. The warning highlights fake weight loss medication containing harmful ingredients, faulty syringes that may not deliver the correct dose, and the sale of prescription-only drugs without a prescription. “We would urge people to make sure any prescription medicines they get online are dispensed from a pharmacy registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council,” the GPhC stated.
The scale of the problem stretches well beyond Berkshire. The National Pharmacy Association reported in April that one in ten online pharmacies have had their website or social media cloned by criminals in the past year, with two in five online pharmacies saying they have seen patients who unwittingly bought weight loss medication from unregulated sellers. Criminals are copying regulator logos—including the GPhC’s and the Care Quality Commission’s—to appear legitimate. Sehar Shahid, an NPA board member, said tougher enforcement is needed to protect patients. The NPA is separately pushing the government for a dedicated ‘.pharmacy’ domain name so buyers can identify regulated websites at a glance.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) takes down hundreds of illegal sites each year and has launched new tools to help the public check whether a website is known to be selling medicines unlawfully. Anyone who suspects they have bought from a fake pharmacy can report it through the MHRA’s Yellow Card Scheme. In documented cases, patients have bought counterfeit Mounjaro pens from cloned pharmacy websites at deep discounts and experienced no therapeutic benefit.
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