A total of 136 candidates sat the registration assessment in Northern Ireland on June 8, with 124 candidates passing, PSNI announced yesterday (September 21).

This is seven percentage points lower than the 98% pass rate recorded in 2020, when 135 candidates sat the exam despite the impact of COVID-19.

This June’s registration exam was “successfully held in a safe, socially distanced manner complying with local COVID-19 restrictions”, PSNI said.

The Northern Ireland regulator had announced prior to the exam that the assessment would be paper-based, rather than the online exam format that the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) ran for the first time in March, largely due to the unavailability of Pearson VUE testing centres in the country.

It was also the first assessment in the new common registration format. The next registration exam will be “computer-based” and will take place on November 16, the same day as the GPhC’s online autumn assessment.

“On completing their training from mid-July 2021, the 124 successful candidates were able to join the register and practise as qualified pharmacists,” PSNI said.

The regulator’s president Dr Jim Livingstone congratulated “all those involved in making this year’s assessment a success”.

He also acknowledged “the efforts of successful candidates and PSNI staff to ensure that these new pharmacists were successfully registered from July during the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions”.