We believe professional practise offers the best protection for patients and people who use pharmacy services.
The foundation training programme gives trainee pharmacists the chance to further develop and demonstrate the skills, knowledge and behaviours expected of pharmacists. It also gives them the opportunity to further apply their academic knowledge in practice settings.
Training to become a pharmacist in Great Britain involves learning and understanding how to deliver the safe and effective patient-centred care which patients and the public expect from pharmacy professionals.
Trainee pharmacists spend 52 weeks in supervised training at an approved training site. During this time, they must demonstrate that they meet all the GPhC learning outcomes.
From July 2025, all training programmes for the 2025/26 training year onwards will be provided through GPhC-accredited schemes run by the statutory education bodies in England, Scotland and Wales, other than a small number arranged directly by universities with accredited providers.
Foundation training programmes
Training programmes are filled through national recruitment schemes, and are organised by the statutory education body for each country:
- NHS England in England
- HEIW in Wales
- NES in Scotland
You must apply for a training programme through these recruitment scheme - you can’t apply to individual employers directly.
If you are on a sandwich or integrated course, you may access your training in a different way. Your university will advise you if this is the case, and the process you need to follow.
If you want to start your training directly after you finish your MPharm or OSPAP, you’ll need to apply to the scheme in June of the year before the year in which you will finish. If you are studying an OSPAP course this could be before your course begins.
The national recruitment schemes do not allow late applications under any circumstance. We will receive information about your training from the statutory education body responsible for your training. This will allow us to:
- approve your status as a foundation trainee
- invite you to apply to sit the registration assessment
- confirm that you meet the requirements for registration, when you apply to register with us
We will contact you to let you know you when you can create an account on myGPhC to apply for foundation trainee status.
Find out more about how to sign up to my GPhC and complete your application
Trainees with partially completed training
If you’ve currently completed part of your foundation training but have not finished, you must contact us by Monday 5 May. We will confirm with you what training you can ‘bank’ and then the point from which you will need to start, if you want to continue your training. We won’t be able to confirm any training after this date, and you will need to start from the beginning of the scheme.
Trainees who have not completed training by December 2025
If you will not have completed your training by the end of the 2024/25 training year, you should
- contact us so that we can confirm what training you have recorded as completed
- contact the statutory education body in the country where you want to finish your training, and they will discuss training options with you
Time limits to register
Important: if the arrangements you make to complete your training mean that you will not meet the requirement to complete your education and training within the time limits set out in section 1.3 of the criteria for registration, please contact us about an requesting an extension.
Registration and independent prescribing
If you have completed an MPharm which meets the previous (2011) standards for education and training or are studying on an OSPAP course, you will not be eligible to register as an independent prescriber when you first register with us, regardless of when you complete your training, or sit the registration assessment. You must take an accredited independent prescribing course once you have registered to become an independent prescriber, if you want to become one.
You will be able to complete your training and sit the registration assessment in 2026 and beyond, and you will be assessed according to the 2011 standards when you sit.
In the foundation training programme, you will be assessed in practice against a modified version of the 2021 learning outcomes.
If you have completed an MPharm course which meets the 2021 standards, you will be assessed at prescribing as part of your foundation training. Provided you are signed off by your designated prescribing practitioner, you will be eligible to apply to register as an independent prescriber.
You will sit the same registration assessment as trainees who haven’t completed the independent prescriber education and training- and it won’t cover any independent prescriber-specific content.
In the IETP 2021 standards and IETP interim learning outcomes, several learning outcomes reference prescribing. They outline the essential knowledge pharmacists must have to advise prescribers or prescribe independently.
This knowledge is required by all trainee pharmacists, regardless of their FTY route.
For instance, a pharmacist should be able to recommend a therapeutic monitoring regimen to a prescriber, while an independent prescribing pharmacist should be able to implement it themselves. Therefore, testing therapeutic monitoring in the assessment is fair for all trainee pharmacists.