QLD Pharmacy Scope – OH&S

Pharmacies in QLD have a duty of care for both customers and employees. It is important to understand this process and your requirements. More importantly, it’s also vital to be able to carry out this requirement in a cost effective and minimally disruptive way.

• Test & Tag – Office and Registers = 5 Years, Kitchen area and hazard areas 12 months
• Fire – 6 Months
• EEL – 6 months
• RCD – 6 Months

Our first recommendation

All your point of sale areas should be tested at 5 yearly intervals. Having Test and Tag completed on POS on an annual basis has a number of adverse effects. Firstly, that your POS will most likely go offline. This means that you will be unable to collect revenue for 10-20 minutes in a working day. Secondly, the risk of disconnecting that POS and not being able to reconnect it to your system is a genuine threat and we have seen it occur many times. Finally, your staff’s ability to properly log into your POS system, fault find may be a further risk.

This is why we strongly advise that pharmaceutical industry customers set up there POS in a way where the electrical cords are not subject to flex. In common language, meaning the cords from the computer, receipt printer, are neatly tucked away and not visible to the customers eye. As a result of setting up your POS this way, you are now legally able to test your POS at a 5-yearly interval, which is greatly beneficial to your staff, business and your ability to operate over the long term. We see this time and time again, so much so that we decided to write and blog post about it, as we want to help you.

Our Second recommendation

Organise your testing at the start or end of a work day. Getting this done at the start of a day will enable our boys to conduct the mandatory RCD testing prior to trading. For those who don’t know, RCD testing will shut off your power momentarily. This means your computers and POS will not be on. Yes, some people have back up power, but your internet it most likely not backed up, so you will lose connection. Therefore, it is important that this part of the testing is completed first to avoid all possible disruption to your business.