2025-03-31 17:15:07
Under section 44 of the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007, Ministers must maintain a scheme for collating and disclosing information about individuals who carry out, or wish to carry out, regulated roles with children or protected adults. The scheme allows pharmacy owners to check that their pharmacists are not on any barred list.
Individuals may apply to join the scheme and may not carry out regulated work unless they are members of it. From 1 April 2025, it will be an offence under section 45C of the Act to carry out any type of regulated role without being a member of the scheme.
From 1 April 2025, under section 45D of the Act, it will be an offence for an organisation to offer any type of regulated role to an individual unless the organisation has requested and received disclosure under the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020.
Regulated roles include the activities of practising as a pharmacist where the activities give the opportunity to have unsupervised contact with children or the opportunity to have contact with protected adults. (Pharmacy technicians are not mentioned in the Act.) A person whose normal duties include the day-to-day supervision or management of an individual carrying out a regulated role is also to be treated as carrying out a regulated role.