Several candidates were left unable to reserve a place for the upcoming assessment when the booking portal first opened last week (May 19).
The BTL Group – the new provider of the GPhC’s assessment – took the website down on that day to address the issues faced by many trainees.
The GPhC reopened its booking system at 10am last Friday (May 20).
As of today (May 23), there are “around 600 spaces still available across the UK”, the regulator told C+D, “with around 60 candidates” left to book.
“Candidates should be able to find a space within a reasonable travel distance,” the GPhC stated.
Over 2,800 candidates managed to book
Trainees were able to access the system after booking reopened and more than 2,800 have successfully secured a slot for the June registration assessment, the GPhC continued.
Meanwhile, BTL is working to resolve “issues with a small number of duplicate bookings”, the regulator told C+D last week (May 20).
“We are aware that candidates have experienced significant issues with Scheduler, the BTL system for booking registration assessment sittings, which has caused extra stress, inconvenience and disruption during their training time,” the GPhC acknowledged.
“We want to apologise for the inconvenience caused and thank stakeholders who have helped to communicate updates to keep candidates informed,” it added.
Problems with “fail-safe mechanism”
The regulator had to cancel a number of bookings on Wednesday last week, after some candidates managed to book a slot before the scheduled opening time of the booking platform.
In response to this episode, a “fail-safe mechanism” was deployed, which presented “a significant issue”, the GPhC acknowledged.
This “impacted on the ability of users to navigate through the system”, it continued.
“We will be working with BTL in the coming weeks to address this, to ensure the booking process for future assessments works effectively,” the regulator said.
The GPhC announced in January it had selected the BTL Group – a global provider of assessment technology services – to run its registration assessment for the next three years.