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General Pharmaceutical Council
Q. How will the independence of the regulator from government be achieved?
Q. Why is a pharmacy inspectorate needed? None of the other health professions regulators maintains an inspectorate.
Q. Why aren't the adjudication functions of the GPhC going to be transferred to the Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator (OHPA)?
Q. What happens to the RPSGB assets when the GPhC is established?
Q. Where will the GPhC be based?
Q. What regulatory activities will be carried out in Scotland or Wales or will there merely be a 'token' presence?
Q. Will the new Council be elected?
Q. When will appointments be made to the Council positions, and how will that process be made inclusive?
Q. How do we know that the Appointments Commission will make inclusive appointments to the Council?
Q. As there are no reserved sectoral places, will the GPhC ensure that the concerns of different sectors are properly taken into account, particularly given the small size of the Council?
Q. Why does the Council have such a high proportion of lay members?
Q. Are there to be reserved places on the Council for certain professions?
Q. Why is neither the Chair nor the Chief Executive a pharmacist?
A. The Government believes that to ensure public confidence the professional regulators must be independent in their actions. The GPhC's council has parity between lay and registrant members, and all are independently appointed.
To ensure that regulators are accountable to Parliaments, there are provisions within the Pharmacy Order requiring the GPhC to produce a report on the exercise of its functions which includes a description of the arrangements the council has put in place to ensure that it adheres to good practice in relation to equality and diversity, a statistical report about its fitness to practise arrangements and a strategic plan to the Privy Council, which in turn will lay the reports before the relevant UK Parliaments.
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A. The RPSGB registers pharmacy premises and has enforcement responsibilities under the Medicines Act 1968 in respect of all retail pharmacy businesses, providing NHS and non-NHS services, as well as the retail sale of general sales list medicines. The inspectorate therefore has a key role in ensuring the safe sale and supply of medicines. It will continue to form part of the functions of the GPhC in respect of Great Britain. The closely integrated regulation of pharmacy professionals, premises and products is a great strength in ensuring patient safety. The new powers provided to the GPhC in relation to owners and superintendent pharmacists and pharmacy premises will allow for greater responsiveness in regulation.
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A. Initially the Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator (OHPA) will have adjudication functions in relation to the professions regulated by the General Medical Council and the General Optical Council. However, consideration will be given to transferring the adjudication of fitness to practise cases relating to pharmacy to the Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator after the OHPA and the GPhC have been established.
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A. The Pharmacy Order contains provisions to cover the transfer of relevant staff, property, rights and liabilities to the GPhC. When the GPhC is established, eligible staff will transfer from the Society to the GPhC under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations. The Society's regulatory responsibilities, liabilities and assets are being transferred but the Society and its remaining responsibilities, liabilities and assets will continue to exist and will form the basis of the new professional leadership body. Some items relevant to the regulatory functions, such as databases and records, will need to be transferred to the GPhC to allow it to take over regulatory functions.
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A. In the first instance, the GPhC will be based in the RPSGB's London headquarters. It will then be for the GPhC to decide its eventual location. The Pharmacy Regulation and Leadership Oversight Group has recommended that the GPhC should also have a meaningful and credible presence in Scotland and Wales, but no decisions have yet been made.
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A. The GPhC will cover England, Scotland and Wales. It is not intended that a 'token' regulatory presence would be established and there is a possibility that the GPhC could work closely with the other health professional regulators in Scotland and Wales to maximise efficiency and effectiveness. These details have yet to be decided.
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A. No, the commitment in the White Paper Trust, Assurance and Safety — the regulation of health professionals in the 21st century, is for councils of health professions regulators to be appointed independently rather than elected by registrants.
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A. The appointment of the chair designate, Bob Nicholls CBE, was confirmed on the 17th June 2009, and officially announced on 26th June 2009. The names of the remaining council members designate were announced on 6th September 2009. Their appointment took effect from 1 October 2009. The GPhC has a council of 14 people, with parity (as a minimum) between lay and registrant members, and all have been independently appointed through the Appointments Commission to ensure that purely professional concerns are not thought to dominate its agenda. Following the granting of the legal constitution for the organisation by Parliament, appointments were ratified by the Appointments Commission on 17 March 2010 and are no longer designate.
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A. The Appointments Commission aims to ensure that as many people as possible know about the opportunities to be considered for public appointments. In most instances, this is done through advertising, although other means are used e.g. mailing list, local and national networks. All applications are considered by an expert panel, which includes an independent assessor, whose job is to ensure all decisions are made fairly. The panels decide who are the best candidates and make recommendations to the appointing authority. CHRE has recommended that the GPhC’s council should have a sufficiently broad range of interests in view of the wide range of stakeholders in pharmacy regulation. However, CHRE also recommends that there should be no representative members on the new council and no reserved places for interest groups. All members, whether registrant or lay, should be appointed against defined competencies.
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A. The Enhancing Confidence Working Group report made it clear that Councils will be independent and will not be representative of professions nor of sectors within professions. The GPhC Governance Working Party report, which has been published on the GPhC website (http://www.pharmacyregulation.org), acknowledges that the smaller the council, the greater the concerns that may arise about the balance and spread of membership, so it has emphasised the need to maintain the confidence of the regulated professions as well as that of the public.
The Council members have been selected on merit to give an overall balance of qualities, skills and experience. Real engagement with the profession and other stakeholders could never be achieved simply through the composition of a Council of 14; it is much more about genuine outreach and engagement. The GPhC has a legal duty to consult with registrants across the pharmacy profession.
The responsibility of the Council lies in governance and strategic oversight for the GPhC not in ''doing regulation''. Members of the Council bring a mix of generic skills and have a broad knowledge of practice. Council members are encouraged to spend time in different sectors of pharmacy as part of the induction process.
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A. The White Paper Trust, Assurance and Safety proposed at least parity between lay and registrant council members on health professional regulatory councils, to ensure that they are independent and that purely professional concerns are not thought to dominate their work.
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A. No. A working group led by Niall Dickson published a report in June 2008, Implementing the White Paper Trust Assurance and Safety: Enhancing Confidence in Healthcare Professional Regulators. This recognised that councils need to be able to reflect the interests and concerns of key constituencies, but also that all members should be clear that their overriding purpose was the protection of the public and patients. It recommended that ''No group should have guaranteed places on the counci''.
However, in the interests of reflecting the differences in health service delivery in the three countries, there is a requirement to ensure that at least one person on the council of the GPhC is from each of the three participating countries.
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A. PRLOG endorsed the GPhC Governance Working Group's recommendation that there should be no requirement for the GPhC Chair to be either lay or registrant.
In both cases the Appointments Commission carried out a stringent, competency-based recruitment process. Bob Nicholls CBE has been appointed as Chair of the GPhC and Duncan Rudkin has been appointed as the Chief Executive. Neither are pharmacists, but they have impressive track records which make them the best people for the job.
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