A new consultation asks for views on changes to some of the rules that set out how the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has to carry out its functions as a regulator.
The proposals aim to improve the GPhC’s rules governing its statutory committees, the advisers to those committees, fitness to practise proceedings, and the evidence of identity required as part of the registration process.
Duncan Rudkin, Chief Executive of the General Pharmaceutical Council, said:
“We are always looking at how we can work more efficiently, while meeting the standards that the public and pharmacy professionals have a right to expect. We have used our experience so far to identify a number of amendments to our rules to improve the way we work.
“These changes will have a real impact on how we manage fitness to practise investigations and hearings and registration applications. We therefore want to receive as many responses as possible from pharmacy professionals, patients and the public and others with an interest in pharmacy regulation, to help us to put the right rules in place.”
Changes to the rules being proposed include:
- increasing the maximum number of panellists on statutory committees, to make sure there are enough panellists available and hearings can take place as soon as possible
- allowing panellists to be members of both the Fitness to Practise Committee and Appeals Committee, to provide greater flexibility and make sure panellists can maintain their skills. Conflicts of interest would be avoided by making sure that a panellist assigned to an appeals case had not been involved in any related Fitness to Practise hearing
- making Council responsible for deciding policies regarding the criteria for referral of cases to Fitness to Practise Committee and appropriate sanctions. The guidance documents produced by Council would be used by the statutory committees when they make decisions in individual fitness to practise hearings. The Investigating Committee and Fitness to Practise Committees have previously produced their own guidance
- making changes to the requirements for identity checks for registration so it is more straightforward for applicants to provide the necessary identity documents, at the same time as making sure that identity documents are genuine.
The consultation will run for 12 weeks until 12 July 2012. The Council will then consider the outcomes of the consultation at its meeting in September.