The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has pledged to conduct a "thorough and systematic analysis" of the Francis report to determine what pharmacy can learn from the failings of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.

The GPhC aims to produce a thoughtful analysis by April, chief executive Duncan Rudkin told C+D in an exclusive interview on Friday (February 8). However, he stressed that the GPhC would not rush into judgement over the implications of last week's report, which is yet to receive a formal response from the government.

"What the council decided was that we should do a thorough and systematic analysis of the report to make sure we pick up any lessons and issues for us," Mr Rudkin told C+D following a council meeting on Thursday (February 7). "It remains to be seen what the government's response is and how it plans to legislate."

"We should do a thorough and systematic analysis of the report to make sure we pick up any lessons and issues for us" Duncan Rudkin, GPhC

More on the Francis report Mid Staffs fallout could harm decriminalisation hopes Clinical blog: Pharmacy under review

Published on February 6, the report, written by Robert Francis QC, made 18 key recommendations to improve patient care. These included a call for a single regulator to deal with corporate governance, financial competence, viability and compliance with patient safety and standards. The report also recommended that NHS workers should be criminally liable for causing serious harm or death to a patient as a result of breaching fundamental standards. But Mr Rudkin could not yet comment on whether this recommendation would jeopardise progress on decriminalising dispensing errors, as a senior healthcare lawyer suggested last week.

"I wouldn't want to pre-empt discussions around that," he told C+D. "Around all these topics, there's a balancing exercise between making sure there's proportionate accountability if things go wrong and, on the other hand, wanting to make sure professionals are supported to behave professionally."