Guidance for employers on the education and training requirements of pharmacy support staff
This guidance assists employers to implement the support staff education and training requirements. It also clarifies and explains key sections of the policy.
Guidance for employers on the education and training requirements of pharmacy support staff
Students working in support staff roles
As an employer, you need to carry out an assessment of the relevant knowledge, skills and experience of a student in a support staff role. This helps to identify any further learning or experience required by the student in relation to the role.
Download our learning needs assessment form which must be completed by a registered pharmacy professional.
We recommend that a trainees’ employer chooses a pharmacist or pharmacy technician to act as a designated educational supervisor. That person should have oversight of the trainee's training and should be a source of advice and guidance. The educational supervisor might have another role as well, such as being an assessor.
Pre-registration trainee pharmacy technicians can have a variety of people actively involved in their training. These can include mentors, assessors, work colleagues and line managers.
Trainee pharmacists must train at a site which can provide them with the opportunity to develop and demonstrate the knowledge, skills and behaviours that patients and the public expect from a fully qualified pharmacist.
Providing training at your site
If you would like to provide pharmacist foundation training at your site, we will need to approve your arrangements to check that they meet the scheme requirements, and will give trainees the opportunity to meet the interim learning outcomes set out in the foundation training manual.
You should offer a training plan that is mapped to the interim learning outcomes. The learning environment should meet principle two of the standards for registered pharmacies. Your training site does not have to be on our register of premises, but we expect it to meet this standard.
Applying to provide approved pharmacist foundation training
To apply to provide approved pharmacist foundation training at your site, please fill in an application for provision of pharmacist foundation training.
This application form applies to pharmacist foundation training in all sectors of practice.
The deadline to submit a training accreditation application for the 2024/25 training year was 1 April 2024. If you apply for accreditation after this date then we may not be able to process your application in time to take on a trainee for the 2024/25 training year. Any application sent after this date will take up to eight weeks to be processed, although less complicated applications may not take as long.
If you have previously been approved as a ‘multiple training site provider’, we will request a current electronic version of your training plan, which must meet the criteria detailed in the application form, which you can reference in subsequent applications.
If you are following an overarching training plan such as one from an external or regional training provider, you can reference this on the application form and where appropriate provide an accompanying rotational plan with your application - providing the training plan meets our criteria, has our approval and will be followed at the site.
If you are submitting a training plan that covers a 6-month placement, for example those that form the non-patient facing part of a joint training arrangement, or for sandwich placement students, it will be approved on this basis. Make it clear in your application which of the interim learning outcomes will not be met by the plan as these will need to be targeted during the other period of foundation training. If you are planning an 'integral' programme for your trainee pharmacist, please take into account the progress reviews at weeks 13, 26 and 39. You should plan these reviews to coincide with a three month block placement if possible; if you cannot do this, you need to make sure that the designated supervisor(s) who supervised the placement are present.
Ownership changes
If there is a trainee pharmacist at a site which changes ownership, the new owner must make an application for provision of foundation/pre-registration training for the approval to continue. You should contact us as soon as you are aware that a change of ownership is planned at your training site. Even if your trainee pharmacist stays at the same site, we would class this as a change of organisation if the ownership changes. Their eligibility to sit the registration assessment for the first time may also be affected. We only recognise 13-week blocks of satisfactory training, which means that their training at a new site will ‘start again’ from the week following the date on which their last documented satisfactory progress review was due. Please contact us to discuss how this change will affect your trainee pharmacist.
Email us your completed and signed forms with your training plan.
If you have any questions about your application, please contact us at the email above or through the customer contact centre.
Foundation training manual
Application for training approval
