Outcomes from inspections

The outcome a pharmacy will receive from an inspection has changed as part of our updated approach. There are now two potential outcomes; standards met or standards not all met.

All of the standards will need to be met for a pharmacy to receive a ‘standards met’ outcome, and any pharmacy not meeting all of the standards will need to complete an improvement action plan, as before. The improvement action plan will be published alongside the report on the new inspections website.

The pharmacy will also receive one of four possible findings for each of the five principles within the standards for registered pharmacies. The four possible findings are:

  • excellent practice
  • ‘good practice’ 
  • ‘standards met’
  • ‘standards not all met’

This will help the pharmacy owner and the team to understand the positive areas of practice from the inspection, as well as areas for improvement. Having these four findings at principle level also enables us to identify notable practice – the good and excellent practice our inspectors are seeing during inspections, as well as poor practice. Our inspectors consider the Findings Framework when assessing how to make findings against the five principles.

The new pharmacy inspections website includes a ‘knowledge hub’ featuring these examples of notable practice, as a learning resource for people working across the pharmacy sector. This will help to support continuous improvement across pharmacy for patients and the public. For more details please visit our new pharmacy inspections website.