Investigating concerns

We only investigate concerns about pharmacists, pharmacy technicians or pharmacies where patient safety could be at risk or public confidence in pharmacy could be affected.

The types of concerns we will investigate

  • Serious unprofessional or inappropriate behaviour
  • Dishonesty or fraud
  • Criminal conduct
  • Dispensing errors
  • Working under the influence of drugs or alcohol

Find out what information we need so that we can start investigating the concern

Rhoi gwybod am bryder. The concerns form is also available in Welsh/Cymraeg

The types of concerns we won’t investigate

We won’t investigate all concerns about pharmacy professionals and pharmacies. We have to prioritise concerns where there may be a risk to patient safety or where public confidence in pharmacy could be affected.

We won’t be able to help in obtaining compensation or an apology.

We usually won’t investigate the following types of concerns:

  • Electronic prescriptions being sent to the wrong pharmacy by a GP or another health professional – please contact your GP surgery directly to make sure that the prescription is being sent to your desired pharmacy.
  • Customer service issues; for example, having to wait to get a prescription or a pharmacy professional being rude – please contact the pharmacy or the pharmacy’s head office.
  • Contractual issues; for example, opening hours or charges for private prescriptions – contact the NHS for this sort of concern: NHS England; NHS Scotland; NHS Wales.
  • Non-medicinal products; for example, problems with a product such as a shampoo or hairspray which might be sold in a pharmacy but is not a medicine – please contact the Pharmacy Manager.
  • Employment issues; for example, hours of work or employment contracts  – pharmacy professionals, please contact your employer directly.

Most concerns can be dealt with quickly and effectively by the pharmacy’s own complaints process. Therefore, we recommend raising these types of concern directly with the manager of the pharmacy or the professional involved at the time. 

Who else can help with your concern

Before reporting a concern to us please be sure that we are the right organisation to contact. It is also important to be familiar with the likely process we will follow once the concern has been reported. Visit this page for details about other organisations that can help.

Alternatively, follow this link to report a concern to the GPhC.

Already reported a concern to the GPhC?

For an update, please review the acknowledgement letter about the concern and contact the Case Officer managing the concern; alternatively send an email to concerns@pharmacyregulation.org.

Please quote the case reference for all communications; this will start with the letters ‘CAS’ followed by five numbers and then a mixture of six letters and numbers; for example: CAS-01234-A1B2C3.

For more details visit our ‘How we deal with concerns’ page.