EXCLUSIVE

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has not reached its goal of speeding up all fitness-to-practise cases, it has told C+D.

The number of cases open for more than a year dropped from 183 in December to 176 in February, but the number of these cases open for more than 15 months had increased by 9 per cent to 147, the regulator said in papers released ahead of its council meeting on April 16. 

GPhC chief executive Duncan Rudkin said the regulator was "encouraged" by improvements to the timeliness of some cases. But it was “not by any means where want to be in the long run” and would "continuously improve" its approach, he said.

"There will always be cases that last longer than 15 months. With many of those older cases, [there] are lots of different parties that may need to lead in a particular part of an investigation," he told C+D in an exclusive interview on Wednesday (April 23).

'Always looking to improve timeliness'

The GPhC was "always looking to improve timeliness [and] to eliminate unnecessary steps" in the way it dealt with fitness-to-practise cases, because it appreciated they could be "stressful" for all parties involved, said Mr Rudkin.

"We're always trying to balance thoroughness [with] the need to be handle cases as quickly as we can. Every case is unique [and] there's no single right answer," he said.

In its council papers, GPhC fitness-to-practise director Claire Bryce-Smith drew members' attention to improvements in the timeliness of fitness-to-practise cases since June 2014. The proportion of cases aged 12 to 15 months dropped from 8 to 4 per cent, while cases aged 6 to 12 months dropped from 26 to 20 per cent, which Ms Bryce-Smith attributed to the introduction of a new case management system.

Last year, the GPhC admitted its previous target of closing 95 per cent of fitness-to-practise cases within 12 months was "not possible". 

Is the GPhC closing fitness-to-practise cases quickly enough?

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