After receiving positive responses to its draft strategy, the GPhC will move forward with developing and enforcing a new plan of action to deliver EDI in all aspects of its work as a regulator and employer, it said.

Speaking at yesterday’s (October 7) council meeting, Laura McClintock – chief of staff and associate director of corporate affairs – presented the feedback the GPhC gathered on its strategy following a 12-week consultation.

The regulator announced on Twitter that the council had approved the strategy, the final version of which will be released “in the coming weeks”.

A spokesperson told C+D yesterday that some minor drafting changes and clarifications suggested in yesterday’s council meeting will be made to the strategy and the document will also be translated into Welsh before being published.

The strategy will set forth the GPhC’s ambitions over the next five years and the regulator will publish yearly updates on its progress, according to the council papers.

Main objectives of the EDI strategy

Plans to achieve greater equality and diversity within the GPhC fall under three main themes, which the regulator outlined in its papers published ahead of the meeting this week. Each theme proposes a number of objectives and intended outcomes.

These include making “regulatory decisions demonstrably fair, lawful and so free from discrimination and bias”, fostering equality in health outcomes by addressing  “discrimination in all pharmacy settings” and ensuring “everyone can access person centred care”, and “to lead by example and demonstrate best practice within [its] organisation”.

To eliminate bias in regulatory decisions, the GPhC pledged to improve and diversify the data it collects from its workforce, to routinely publish diversity data sets related to fitness to practise cases, anonymise decision making processes, and use its diversity data to monitor disproportionate impacts on different groups.

Other objectives include developing comprehensive equality guidance for pharmacy owners.

Strategic themes and objectives got ‘strong support’

The GPhC sought views and comments on its proposed EDI strategy between April and July 2021.

It received a total of 279 written responses to its consultation, with 251 of these respondents identifying themselves as individuals and 28 acting on behalf of an organisation, the GPhC reported in its council papers.

About 80% of these respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that the themes, objectives and outcomes set out in the draft strategy were appropriate.

Some observed that outcomes “could be more prescriptive and expected the strategy, at this stage, to expand on success measures and clarify how progress will be demonstrated and evidenced”, the GPhC wrote in the papers.

There was an especially positive response towards the proposal to use data to secure greater transparency of outcomes in fitness to practise cases, and the enforcement of anonymous decision making to mitigate the risk of bias, the regulator said.