The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has expressed “grave concerns” about plans to limit how long it can spend checking the competence of European pharmacists.

Under the European professional card system – due to be implemented for pharmacists in January 2016 – regulators will have a maximum of three months to check the skills or competence of particpating European doctors, nurses and pharmacists to work in the UK.

The GPhC is concerned this system will “circumvent the regulatory checks” it carries out before pharmacists are allowed to join the register, by allowing them to provide temporary pharmacy services “based on the regulator regime in their home [EU] member state", it said yesterday (November 17).

The GPhC called for a “full and independent assessment” of the scheme’s impact on patient safety.

The Department of Health (DH) told C+D it expects all employers to carry out pre-employment checks to make sure their employees are "capable of providing the best services". The European professional card is an optional "additional route" pharmacists will be able to use to ensure their qualifications are recognised, the DH stressed.

System will not "bring intended benefits"

But GPhC chief executive Duncan Rudkin said the regulator does not believe the system “will bring the intended benefits”.

It is particularly concerned that European pharmacists providing “temporary and occasional services” will not have to meet the tougher English language controls it intends to bring in next year, Mr Rudkin added.

The regulator has raised its concerns with the government and the European Commission since the proposals were introduced in 2011, it said. Although the legislation has been amended to allow regulators to ask for translations of documents proving a pharmacist’s qualifications, Mr Rudkin said the GPhC “remains concerned” about the new system.

It plans to use its reponse to the DH consultation to recommend that “full administrative, fitness-to-practise and indemnity provisions should apply equally to all European-qualified pharmacists, as they do to all other pharmacists on the GPhC’s register”, he added.

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