The Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has failed to appoint a permanent chief executive after a “recent competition”, the country’s regulator announced last week.

The PSNI said that it was “unfortunately unable on this occasion to recruit a suitable candidate” but would “resume [its] efforts” to fill its leading role.

A spokesperson for the PSNI told C+D yesterday (September 17) that the “recruitment process is ongoing”.

Read more: Ten pharmacists removed from register at once after failing to complete CPD

Its director of operations Joan Duffy took over as “caretaker chief executive” on September 13, replacing Jonathan Patton who assumed the caretaker role in May, the regulator said.

Patton will “return to his other roles”, it added.

 

Northern Irish students

 

Meanwhile, at the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) meeting last week, its chief strategy officer Louise Edwards said that it was “concerned” about the PSNI’s failure to share statistics about the performance of Northern Ireland’s pharmacy schools in the June registration assessment.

Edwards told the council that the GPhC was talking with the PSNI “very closely” so that “it doesn't happen again”.

She added that the GPhC believed the failure to share the statistics was a “one-off…human error rather than systematic”.

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But a PSNI spokesperson told C+D yesterday that it is the Northern Ireland regulator’s “current policy” not to release assessment results for its schools - Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University.

They said that there is a “greater risk of individuals being identified” owing to the “smaller number of candidates sitting the exam in Northern Ireland”.

Read more: Backtracked fee promises will hammer NI pharmacists, warns PDA

Nevertheless, the spokesperson said that the PSNI is “open to adopting a different approach”.

“We…are actively taking advice and seeking views from interested parties as to what level of information could be published and how this could be provided to the GPhC,” they added.

 

PSNI in peril?

 

Last month, C+D reported that ten pharmacists had been removed from the register by the PSNI over "non-compliance" with continuing professional development (CPD) rules.

In May, the Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA) cried foul after the PSNI’s failure to introduce an instalment system meant that pharmacists in Northern Ireland would have to pay fees equating to almost a quarter of their monthly pay in one go this year.

Read more: FtP delays: PSA slams PSNI over failure to meet three regulatory standards

And in March, the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) found that the Northern Irish pharmacy regulator only met 15 out of the 18 standards of “good regulation” in its 2022/23 performance review of the PSNI.

The “PSNI’s inability to provide timely and accurate information” to the regulator’s regulator led it to fail one of the standards, the report said at the time.

“These issues raise serious questions about the confidence we…have in the PSNI’s reporting,” it added.