C+D exclusively revealed yesterday (September 13) that detailed proposals for pharmacy technicians to be handed legal responsibility for supervising the supply of prescription-only medicines (POM) have been submitted to a Department of Health (DH) programme board.

A working group, established by the UK’s four chief pharmaceutical officers, has suggested amending legislation to allow a “registered pharmacy professional” – such as a pharmacy technician – to supervise the sale and supply of pharmacy (P) medicines and POMs, according to confidential documents seen by C+D.

The GPhC confirmed to C+D today (September 14) that it is represented on the working group responsible for producing the proposals, but stressed that any discussion around changes that would affect pharmacy staff should be “open and transparent”.

“Changes to the law regarding supervision is a matter for government and would require a public consultation on any proposals,” a spokesperson for the regulator said.

“It is right and proper that there is an open and transparent discussion about the roles of those within the pharmacy team.”

GPhC “mindful” of changes

In the documents, the working group acknowledged that the GPhC are “mindful that, rightly, scrutiny is placed on us to ensure we do not introduce new regulatory burdens without evidence to justify it".

"As such, the GPhC advocates considering other assurances [before any changes to legislation]," the group noted.

This could include “the standards for pharmacy professionals – education and practice (including working within their scope of competence); the standards for and inspection of registered pharmacies; and the potential for the GPhC to issue guidance to registrants, employers and others on the standards for the education, training, supervision and performance of non-registered pharmacy staff, as a first step, rather than annotation”, the group noted.

The regulator told C+D this morning that if the government was to bring forward any proposals to allow pharmacy technicians to supervise medicines supply, the GPhC would consider the implications for regulation and respond accordingly.

“Completely separate”

In a separate interview with C+D on Monday (September 11), GPhC chief executive Duncan Rudkin stressed that the regulator’s current overhaul of education standards for technicians – agreed at its council meeting last week – is “completely separate from [the issue] of whether the government at some point might bring forward proposals to change the law”.

“The education and training standards….are of course in the context of existing law, which does not provide for technicians to supervise medicines transactions,” Mr Rudkin told C+D.