In April, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) revealed that it would run a consultation considering new initial education and training standards for the sector’s “changing landscape”.
In its consultation response published this week (July 16), the PDA raised several “long-standing concerns” over the plans to improve pharmacy education and training.
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Commenting on the regulator’s plans to “introduce yearly monitoring with a greater use of data”, the PDA claimed that “the GPhC has this data…already” and is aware of “the disparity in results” between universities.
“It is not clear why the GPhC is consulting about a process it is already undertaking with little tangible result,” it said, adding that the gap in the registration pass rate between the worst and best schools has remained stagnant since 2019.
“It seems that the GPhC is proving incapable of resolving this significant disparity,” it said.
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The PDA added that the persistent attainment gap between black students and other groups was “an incredible waste of talent and commitment when diligent students appear to be failed by a regulator that seems unable to ensure that individual universities provide better support”.
“It is unclear what steps the GPhC has taken to independently assess any potential bias in its own registration exam nor what steps it has taken to support black African students,” it said.
The GPhC declined to comment.
“Softened” science qualifications
The union also highlighted a “lack of any standardised and independently set assessment for pharmacy technicians”.
And it raised concerns that one trainee pharmacy technician course provider had “softened” the “science entry qualification” for its course.
“Given the ever-widening scope of practice being promoted for pharmacy technicians that assumes an underlying knowledge and proficiency”, this creates “risks for patients”, it said.
It added that the GPhC must “be informed of every student that starts a pharmacy technician course”.
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And it rejected the “misnomer” of “pre-registration pharmacy technician” included in the consultation.
It said this “implies that the pharmacy technician student is undertaking a post-graduation training period…akin to an MPharm graduate”, adding that “trainee pharmacy technician” is “the correct term”.
The union also said it was “concerned that the consultation proposed to increase the interval between accreditation events that are undertaken by the GPhC”.
“Confidential’ discussions
Reacting to the comments, the GPhC said that it is currently analysing all the consultation responses and did not wish to comment while analysis was ongoing.
Meanwhile, the regulator this week revealed that it would discuss several agenda items as “confidential business” at its council meeting today (July 18).
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The meeting papers listed six items to be discussed in its confidential session - including items previously discussed in open session such as pharmacy education and training.
Other items to be discussed in the confidential session included international registration, the GPhC’s “investment funds”, “racism in pharmacy” and a review of UK regulator the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) covering deaths by suicide related to the fitness-to-practise (FtP) process.
