Can your practice software be the controlled drugs register?

What the law allows

VMD guidance is explicit that a computerised register is permitted. It states that any person who purchases or supplies any product containing a controlled drug specified in Schedule 2 must maintain a Controlled Drugs register.

The register must 'be either a computerised system or a bound book, which does not include any form of loose leaf register or card index'. So a practice management system can hold it, in principle (gov.uk, read 15 August 2026).

What the register has to do

• Have a separate page for each strength and form of the drug, recorded at the top of each page.
• Be kept at the premises to which it relates, so separate registers for each set of premises, and be available for inspection at any time.
• Be kept for a minimum of two years after the date of the last entry.
• Record, on purchase, the details gov.uk lists for a purchase, and on supply (including by administration) the details it lists for a supply, including who collected the drug.
• VMD adds a recommendation rather than a requirement: keep a running balance of stock, calculated and recorded after each transaction and checked against physical stock at regular intervals, so irregularities are identified as quickly as possible.

The above is a summary of the VMD guidance page read on 15 August 2026 and is not a substitute for it. The prescribing vet may delegate completion of the register but, in VMD's words, remains responsible for supplying the controlled drug. Read the source before you change a practice procedure.

None of the six systems we checked mentions it

We read the pricing and feature pages of all six systems in this comparison on 15 August 2026 and searched each for any mention of a controlled drugs register. There were none. Several describe prescribing, dispensing labels, batch and expiry tracking and inventory analytics in detail. Not one describes a Schedule 2 register, a running balance, or the two-year retention.

That is a record of what is on the marketing pages, not proof that the function is absent: it may well exist and be shown in a demo. It does mean the question is yours to ask.

Wastage is the part that catches practices out

VMD's guidance says you must record the volume withdrawn on each occasion. It says to write the vial off as unusable in the register once no useable volume remains. And you must avoid discrepancies between the amount recorded as used, the volume left in the vial and the total stated volume.

It also records something reassuring: inspectors from VMD or the RCVS are aware some wastage is unavoidable. Small discrepancies explained by dead space in syringes are not treated as a breach, provided appropriate measures are in place. If a system is going to hold your register, it needs to record part-volumes, not whole vials.

Four questions for a PIMS salesperson

1. Does the system hold a Schedule 2 controlled drugs register, or do we keep a bound book alongside it?
2. If it does, can it show a separate running record per strength and form, and a running balance after each transaction?
3. Can it record part-volume withdrawals and a written-off vial, with the witness details for a destruction?
4. Can we produce the last two years of the register for an inspector without your support team's help, and after we stop being a customer?