2024-10-08 15:43:32
Earlier this year, the Professional Standards Authority sought our views as part of its Performance Review of the General Pharmaceutical Council. We sought views before responding, and we received some trenchant criticisms of the GPhC’s handling of fitness to practise cases, especially from our lawyer members.
The PSA’s report for 2023/24 has now been published, and we can see that some of the views we fed back are reflected in it. Here are some bullet points:
- The PSA will continue to monitor the GPhC’s approach to pharmacy inspections and keep a close eye on the GPhC’s work to address the issues that had been raised with the PSA.
- The timeliness of handling fitness to practise cases had deteriorated this year and this standard had not been met by the GPhC. It was still taking too long to investigate cases and to progress them. Indeed, the GPhC had reported in its Council papers that timeliness was likely to deteriorate before getting better, as the GPhC addressed “a significant number of complex cases”. Even allowing for this, the PSA considered it was taking too long to resolve fitness to practise cases and its standard was not met. The PSA has written to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and to the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee to provide an update on the GPhC’s performance. The PSA will continue to closely monitor the GPhC’s performance.
- The GPhC had met the PSA’s standard for support for parties in the fitness to practise process. The GPhC has introduced further measures to improve support, including a “phone first” initiative for case officers to speak with parties in the first instance, additional case reviews, and continued support vulnerable registrants by offering access to its independent Support Service provided by Victim Support.
- The PSA referred to feedback about concerns that the GPhC did not always give registrants enough time to provide information. The PSA said:
“We have not seen any evidence that the GPhC has not provided extensions to deadlines when requested. However, given the feedback we received this year, we invite the GPhC to reflect further on how it balances its work to improve timeliness of case progression with giving parties enough time to participate effectively in the FTP process.”
- In January 2024, the BBC had reported on an undercover investigation into the purchase of Prescription Only Medicines from online pharmacies. The PSA will continue to monitor developments in this area.
- The GPhC expects to consult on draft standards for responsible pharmacists and superintendent pharmacists, but the GPhC will not do this before the Government responds to its consultation on supervision.