It has been a busy couple of months as we start to work with pharmacy professionals, patients and the public, and stakeholders, on making the transition to the new standards for registered pharmacies, which our governing council agreed in September. We have started to develop a new inspection model which will underpin the new standards – the way we will check that the standards are being met.
We have set up ‘sounding boards’ of pharmacists and owners of registered pharmacies to make sure we have taken operational perspectives on board in the final model. Those sounding boards have met in England, Scotland and Wales, and further meetings are planned in the New Year.
We are also in the process of setting up a patient and public reference group to raise awareness of the new standards and inspection model, and to make sure that the materials we are developing for the new inspection model are meaningful, understandable and useable.
All of these materials will be public documents, so the work we are putting in now is vital to make sure we get this right for the profession and for users of pharmacy services.
As a GB-wide regulator, it is crucial that the new model serves and meet needs of all countries so we have sounding boards and patient and public reference group meetings planned in England, Scotland and Wales.
These are very important events on the road to full implementation of the new standards, and we look forward to working with you over the coming months.
Bob Nicholls
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