Free Controlled Drugs Record Book Template (UK): Register Page, Balance Checks, Patient Returns and Destruction Logs, PDF and Excel

The controlled drugs register is the one record in a pharmacy, ward or care home that an inspector will always open. The law fixes its headings and its format but says nothing about the running balance, the weekly stock check, the patient returns book or the discrepancy investigation that every regulator now expects to see alongside it. This pack puts the statutory headings and those four working records on one workbook, with the source of each requirement printed on the sheet.

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What's in the template

• Register page (one per drug, strength and form): the regulation 19 headings for drugs obtained and supplied, the authority for each supply, quantity in and out, a running balance, the person-collecting and proof-of-identity columns required for Schedule 2 prescription supplies, and columns for the person entering and a witness
• Balance check log: register balance against physical count for each drug, with the liquid checks NICE asks for (visual, measured, end of bottle), the action taken and two signatures; designed for the weekly check
• Patient returns register: date received, drug, quantity, confirmation it went into the CD cabinet, date destroyed, method, and the signatures of the person destroying and the witness, kept separately from the register as NICE recommends
• Discrepancy investigation log: what was found, what was checked, the outcome, the register footnote it links to, and the date it was reported to the accountable officer if unresolved
• Stock destruction record: the regulation 27 fields for expired or obsolete Schedule 2 stock, including the authorised witness's name, role and signature and the register entry it corresponds to

What it does not replace

Where the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 require a register, the register itself must be a bound book or a compliant computerised system, kept at the premises, one for each set of premises, with a separate page for each strength and form of each drug, entries in chronological order on the day or the next day, in ink, never cancelled or altered. A printed sheet is not a bound book. So for a pharmacy, GP practice, veterinary practice or licence holder, the register page in this pack is a layout to work from and a record for ward-style use, not the statutory register. The other four sheets are records the law leaves to you, and they can be used exactly as printed. In a care home the CQC expects Schedule 2 movements to be recorded in a controlled drugs register and NICE SC1 recommends a bound book with numbered pages; the register page here mirrors that layout for homes that want to standardise their own bound book. Full detail, with every requirement tied to its regulation, in the guide to controlled drugs registers.

Who must keep this record

Everyone authorised to supply a Schedule 2 controlled drug: the pharmacist in charge of a community or hospital pharmacy, doctors, dentists and vets holding their own stock, wholesale dealers and Home Office licence holders (regulation 19). The senior nurse or midwife in charge of a ward is exempt from the statutory register but keeps a ward record book that NICE expects to provide the same audit trail. Care homes must record every movement of a Schedule 2 drug. Balance checks, patient returns records and discrepancy logs are expected by NICE, the GPhC and the CQC of all of them.

How long to keep it

The register and any ward or departmental record book: two years from the date of the last entry (regulation 23). Patient-return destruction records: seven years, and invoices six, on NICE's recommendation. Requisitions: two years from the date on them. Keep completed books on the premises where an inspector can see them.

How to use it

Head each register page with the drug, strength and form and the balance brought forward, and start a new page for each strength and form, including each salt. Enter receipts and supplies on the day, calculate the running balance after every line, and never leave the identity columns blank on a Schedule 2 prescription supply: yes or no is the answer, not a dash. Do the balance check at the same time each week with a second person, record liquids by level and confirm the balance when a bottle is finished, and treat any difference as an investigation, not an adjustment. Keep patient returns out of the register and in the cabinet until they are denatured. Book the authorised witness before expired stock builds up; the GPhC's published inspection findings include overdue destructions as a recurring failure.