GPhC Regulations

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) is the regulatory body for Pharmacy professionals and premises in the UK. Their key roles are to protect the public and to drive improvement in the profession. They do this in a number of ways:

• Maintaining a register of practicing pharmacy professionals and active premises

• Inspecting pharmacy premises

• Setting practice standards and ensuring that they are upheld

• Providing practice guidance where possible

• Promoting professionalism

• Dealing with concerns raised about registrants

• Exercising their enforcement powers where necessary

This page highlights some useful resources for pharmacy teams.

Revalidation

In 2017, the GPhC changed the way that Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians retain their registration each year. Registrants are now required to undergo a mandatory revalidation process each year, which helps to show the public that the trust that people have in the profession is well placed.

This involves each pharmacy professional submitting CPD records and other reflective accounts before they are able to renew their registration. Feedback so far has shown that this is a straightforward exercise and is generally preferred to the previous arrangements.

Find out more about Revalidation

Regulate

Regulate is the GPhC’s regular news publication for registrants, covering the latest news and developments.

Read Regulate online

Standards

The GPhC set the standards for conduct, ethics, and performance which describe the behaviours, attitudes, and values expected of pharmacy professionals and services. They inform the basis of premises inspections, help the profession to gauge performance, and also inform patients and the public of the standards that they can expect of pharmacy professionals. The standards for initial education and training of pharmacy professionals are also laid down by the GPhC.

Each set of standards is supported by specific guidance for areas of practice that professionals may require additional support in applying the standards to – for example, guidance is provided on how to interpret the standards when it comes to religion, personal values and beliefs in relation to the provision of pharmacy services.

Read current GPhC standards and guidance

Community Pharmacy Inspections

Following a consultation exercise, the GPhC has changed its approach to inspecting registered premises. For the most part, the content of individual inspections will not look much different than those which are carried out now, but the main changes will be:

• As a general rule, inspections will now be unannounced

• The outcome of inspections will now be either that a pharmacy has met all of the standards for safe and effective practice, or it has not met all of them.

• Good and Excellent practice will still be highlighted in reports where appropriate

• Inspection outcomes, reports, and action plans will be published on a new website from later in 2019 onwards. Historical reports will not be published.

• All pharmacies will still be inspected within a (roughly) 4.5-year period. However, the order and frequency of inspections will be risk-based. Put simply, pharmacies which have previously received ratings of Poor or Satisfactory with action plans will be inspected sooner than those which were rated Excellent or Good under the previous approach to inspections.

• Two new types of inspection – intelligence-led and themed – will be introduced

• Intelligence-led inspections will utilise the information that the GPhC is provided to prioritise inspections. This might be following concerns being raised about a premises or registrant, or analysing data to characterise certain circumstances or trends that create problems for pharmacy teams and targeting resources to those experiencing them.

• Themed inspections will focus narrowly on specific themes, issues, or types of registrant/premises and will be more in-depth than an ordinary inspection. These will help to identify and spread good practice as well as further explore common areas for improvement.

• The GPhC Knowledge Hub has been created for sharing and learning from good practice.

There are several useful resources made available by the GPhC here. The decision-making framework is a particularly useful tool to help you think about your operations from an inspector’s point of view.

We will add more information on inspections here as it becomes available.