Professionalism

We have now published new guidance to help pharmacy professionals apply standard 1 of the standards for pharmacy professionals, when their religion, personal values and beliefs might impact on their willingness to provide certain services.

We know that health professionals being open and honest when things go wrong is one of the best ways to protect patients. A culture of openness in the NHS, and across healthcare in general, is critical to improving safety and ensuring there is less emphasis on blame and more focus on speaking up and learning.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the consultation on proposed new standards for the initial education and training of pharmacy technicians and changes to the criteria for registration as a pharmacy technician.

We received 357 written responses to our consultation and also heard from hundreds of people through engagement events with pharmacy professionals and members of the public.

We know that everyone in the pharmacy team plays a key role in providing safe and effective care and we want to strengthen and assure the regulatory framework around staffing within pharmacy. As part of our work to review the initial education and training standards for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and independent prescribers, we think it is right to look at the education and training of unregistered pharmacy staff.

In 2016 the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) began work on a project to understand how personal data is processed in community pharmacy, carrying out a series of visits with community pharmacies and running a survey aimed at staff working in community pharmacy which was publicised in a previous issue of Regulate.

We have launched a consultation on proposals to introduce revalidation for pharmacy professionals - an important change to what pharmacists and pharmacy technicians must do each year to show that the trust in pharmacy professionals is well placed

We want to hear your views on the proposed revalidation process.

We hope that this series of articles, sharing examples of what we are seeing through our inspections of registered pharmacies, can prompt discussion and help pharmacy owners and the pharmacy team continually improve the services they provide to patients and the public. At the heart of our strategy for regulation is ‘assurance’ and ‘improvement’. This month, we are focusing on excellent practice within pharmacies.

This isn't limited to those pharmacies that were considered ‘excellent’ overall- it also recognises pharmacy teams who demonstrated particular areas of excellence.

New standards for pharmacy professionals are coming into effect on 12 May 2017

Please read the new standards now, so you know what will be expected from pharmacists and pharmacy technicians from this date.

This month we are focusing on managing and dispensing medicines safely and effectively, in our series of articles which we hope will help pharmacy owners and the pharmacy team continually improve the services they provide to patients and the public.

Pharmacy professionals play a vital role in supplying medicines safely and helping their patients to make informed decisions about their medicines and manage their treatment and care.

If you employ pharmacy professionals or provide a locum agency service, our new guidance can help you to decide if you need to refer a concern about a pharmacy professional to us.