EXCLUSIVE

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) will review whether it is right to avoid a "blanket rule" on removing pharmacists from the register for dishonesty, C+D has learned.

The attitudes of other regulators to dishonesty had "continued to evolve" and the GPhC wanted to ensure it was right to take a case-by-case approach to the resulting sanction, GPhC chief executive Duncan Rudkin told C+D in an exclusive interview on Friday (November 14).

Dishonesty tops the regulator's list of aggravating factors in fitness-to-practise cases and Mr Rudkin said it had "surfaced many times" in its caseload.

He said the GPhC's approach needed to take into account "various degrees of misconduct". "In the case of somebody who is systematically and seriously abusing their position for financial gain, that may be very different from an isolated incident of shoplifting or minor theft outside of the professional context," he told C+D.

The GPhC is reviewing its policy on dishonesty as part of its work to update its sanctions guidance for fitness-to-practise cases, which will also consider its policies on sexual misconduct and failing to blow the whistle on serious misconduct.

The GPhC had seen "quite a number" of fitness-to-practise cases involving sexual misconduct and it needed to check that its own views on sanctions for these cases were in line with pharmacists and the public, he said.

The regulator also wanted to use encourage pharmacists and technicians to raise concerns about cases of bad practice, said Mr Rudkin. A "small part" of this was to use the sanctions to show there were consequences for those who failed to do so, he stressed.

Mr Rudkin stressed the "important point" was to ensure the GPhC's approach to fitness-to-practise rulings was "transparent".  It would make sure it got the balance right between stating certain behaviour was unacceptable while ensuring its rulings were "always proportionate", he said.

The GPhC is due to update its sanctions guidance in six weeks, which will be subject to public consultation.

Last month, the GPhC unveiled requirements for pharmacists to inform patients when something had gone wrong in their care and apologise where the mistake had caused harm or distress.

	Should pharmacists always be removed from the register for dishonesty?