Dermoconsultations in pharmacies - permitted or prohibited

The Voivodeship Administrative Court in Warsaw called for a ban on conducting dermoconsultations in pharmacies in its judgment from June 2012, indicating that the catalogue of pharmaceutical services provided in pharmacies is a limited one and there is no legal basis authorizing pharmacies for conducting other activities than listed in the Pharmaceutical Law.

This standpoint should be considered to be wrong in the context of the judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court issued in January 2012, in which activities, consisting in possession by a pharmacy of blood pressure measuring devices aimed at performing free measures of blood pressure by the pharmacy's customers, were considered to be acceptable. In that judgment, the Supreme Administrative Court questioned the argumentation similar to the one on which the Administrative Court in Warsaw relied.

The Supreme Administrative Court pointed out that freedom of economic activity should be considered as a rule and the prohibitions and restrictions on the economic freedom must clearly be set out in the act.

It should be concluded that in the absence of a statutory prohibition and restriction on conducting dermoconsultations in pharmacies, such activities should be found admissible.

Importantly, while conducting dermoconsultations in a pharmacy should not meet with objections from pharmaceutical inspection authorities, announcing of conducting such dermoconsulations may be considered as a violation of the ban on advertising of pharmacies, for which a financial penalty up to 50.000 PLN may be imposed.

[Joanna Gwarda]