The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has allotted an extra £300,000 on legal fees as part of an overall spend of £700,000 in its 2025-2026 budget to tackle its chronic backlog of open investigation cases, minutes from its December meeting revealed this week (February 17).
The regulator said due to “a build-up of legacy cases post-covid, a large volume of complex cases, increasing volumes of incoming concerns and the changing nature of concerns” had affected its ability to meet investigation standards.
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It has set aside “specific expenditure” over the next two years “to increase throughput and push through ageing cases”.
“Legal costs are set to increase by £0.3m with increase in external advocacy to progress the complex and large cases,” it said.
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It also said that “committee and associate costs are expected to increase by £0.4m with a 30% increase in the number of hearings days with more cases being heard and taking longer due to their complex nature”.
The regulator said that the costs have been offset by reduced panel firm costs, “with more of the investigative work taking place in-house” and by a “reduction in other committee costs”.
Back in the red
The meeting minutes also revealed the regulator has rated its FtP performance as “red” again, after resetting its target and improving to “amber” last year.
In September, July meeting minutes showed it had upgraded its performance from “red” to “amber” as it tested itself against its eased caseload objectives.
But between the second and third quarter of 2024-35, the GPhC’s FtP performance slipped back from “green” to “red”, “having fallen short of [its] performance standard with 514 cases open in quarter three”, the new meeting minutes said.
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“We continue to receive a high volume of new concerns, with 1,599 new receipts in Q3, up 13% from Q2,” the GPhC said.
“Three new case officers will be starting in Q4 which will, in time, ease pressure on the team,” it added.
Concerns
Last month, the GPhC launched a consultation about proposals for a 6% increase in the annual registration fees for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and pharmacy owners from September 2025.
Meanwhile last week, the regulator announced that it is looking to recruit pharmacists and pharmacy technicians across 11 new FtP and two investigating committee (IC) roles on its statutory committees.
Read more: GPhC fails FtP timeliness evaluation again as performance ‘deteriorates’
And in September, the GPhC failed to meet its own regulator’s standards for the timely processing of FtP cases for the sixth year running.
In June, C+D reported that the GPhC’s FtP department received a record 5,477 concerns in the 2023/24 year, an increase of 31% year-on-year.
