Many of the individuals who decide whether a community pharmacist must undergo fitness-to-practise proceedings do not have recent experience in the sector, a law firm has highlighted.

Charles Russell Speechlys, which specialises in representing pharmacists in regulatory matters, said that, in the past, “most” of the members of the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) investigating committee have not had “recent, let alone current” experience of working in a community pharmacy.

The firm’s senior healthcare partner David Reissner stressed that the “vast majority of complaints” considered by the committee concern “something that happens in community pharmacy”.

“Better efforts should be made to attract and appoint committee members who are more representative of the people whose cases they are considering,” Mr Reissner said in the law firm’s response to a GPhC consultation on draft guidance for the committee, seen by C+D last week (October 16).

The GPhC told C+D yesterday (October 20) that it will consider the response “alongside all other representations” to the consultation, which closed last month.

The government and “all health professional regulators” have considered issues around the “lay and professional balance” of regulatory committee membership “at length”, the GPhC stressed. “We have a robust and independent appointments process for [committee members] that supports good, independent decision-making,” it added.

Mr Reissner also used the consultation response to highlight that the GPhC had not included draft guidance on when this investigating committee should issue a warning. This could be a “proportionate way to dispose of a case” that was not serious enough to subject the registrant to the full fitness-to-practise process, he said.

“This [process] causes unnecessary cost to the [GPhC] and stress to the registrant and his or her family,” he added.

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