Pharmacists yesterday (October 30) took to social media to express their dismay at difficulties accessing the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) website for revalidation submission ahead of the deadline this week (November 1).

Sharing a picture showing an “error” message on the myGPhC.org website yesterday, one said that the portal “[seemed] to be down since this morning”.

Read more: Pharmacy revalidation: what do you need to submit?

They said that it allowed them to log in “but not to access the revalidation section for completion of evidence or submission of CPD records”. 

Another warned that they had spent an hour and a half “so far…trying to access [the website] without success” due to the “poor IT”.

The chief pharmacist added that the “trouble with leaving your revalidation to the last weekend” is that “the GPhC website cannot cope with the number of people doing the same”.

 

The regulator has since confirmed that the myGPhC portal is "up and running again", pledging to "monitor" the situation".

Deadline extension?

Various pharmacists shared screenshots of an error message that said there was an “internal server error”, with a hospital pharmacist saying that they were getting “the same error on two devices” despite their network being “good”.

One general practice pharmacist who shared the same image suggested they were “panicking” at the roadblock to their submission, while another registrant said just before 4.30am this morning (October 30) that “it would appear that the middle of the night is the best time to submit”, having “wasted five hours yesterday” trying to do so.

Read more: Reflective accounts: which standards should you consider?

And an anonymous pharmacist yesterday called on the GPhC to extend the deadline for revalidation, saying that “multiple pharmacists have reported the same issues”.

This is “triggering a lot of anxiety amongst your registrants who are now no longer able to complete their [revalidation]”, they said. 

GPhC "working to resolve" issue

The regulator said this morning that it was “aware that some registrants are experiencing issues with myGPhC and [is] working to resolve this ASAP”, with the website “unavailable” at that time.

“We're sorry for any inconvenience and will post any further updates as soon as we can,” it added.

Read more: Use of ChatGPT in revalidation could trigger FtP case, GPhC warns

 

In a tweet that has since been deleted, it later said that myGPhC is "now up and running again" but that it would "continue to monitor it closely", thanking pharmacists for their "patience".

 

But this afternoon (12.01pm), it admitted that it is "still experiencing some issues with myGPhC" and that its IT team is "working to fix this as a priority", adding less than half an hour later that it is "working to resolve the issue with myGPhC and will give a further update at 3.00pm today". 

 

Read more: Full pharmacy revalidation requirements reinstated from October

In March 2020, the GPhC postponed the revalidation submission date due to the COVID-19 pandemic and later told registrants to only submit a reflective account for their revalidation entry that year.

The approach was extended to those having to renew their registration in December, January or February 2022 but the full pharmacy revalidation requirements were reinstated from October 2022.

In May, the regulator suggested that pharmacists undertaking AI-assisted revalidation could face sanctions under a fitness-to-practise (FtP) procedure.