Patients and pharmacists are split over whether the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) should have the power to decide if responsible pharmacists (RP) need to be on the premises at all times.

A partners' forum, created to support the work of the programme board in charge of reviewing medicines law, could not agree on whether the government should hand over some of its responsibility for setting rules and regulations for RPs, the Department of Health (DH) said last week.

The move would mean the GPhC and PSNI, instead of the government, would decide on the role of an RP, including whether they have to be present in the pharmacy at all times. Under the medicines regulations 2008, the RP can be absent from the pharmacy for up to two hours as long as they are contactable.

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	The forum, made up of selected independent pharmacists, pharmacy bodies, multiples and representatives from patient groups, felt the board's plans to legally define the role of the RP and the superintendent pharmacist were "moving in the right direction" at the forum's second meeting earlier this month (December 2).

But some members were concerned about allowing the GPhC to decide if a pharmacist could be responsible for more than one premises at the same time and whether they could be absent, the DH said.

The debate echoed concerns raised by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) at a programme board meeting in October. At the time, the RPS said it was worried that allowing an RP to be absent from the pharmacy could impact patient safety.

The RPS opted for the power to legally define RPs to remain with the government but were told that this would send out an "inconsistent message" and would make it difficult for the board to change other areas of pharmacy regulation.

Ken Jarrold, chair of the board set up to "rebalance" pharmacy regulation, said his group would "carefully consider" the views expressed by the forum.

"I am pleased that, overall, participants at the partners' forum were supportive of the proposals relating to the superintendent pharmacist, responsible pharmacist and pharmacy owner," he said.

The board was committed to a public consultation on all its planned changes to the law, scheduled for January, which include the decriminalisation of dispensing errors, he said.

"We will continue to listen carefully to the views of pharmacy professionals, patients, the public and a wide range of people and organisation from across the pharmacy sector to inform the final proposals," he added.

In September, the board raised concerns that the complexities of the discussions about superintendents and RPs could hold up plans to decriminalise dispensing errors. The DH promised to look at what it was "practical to achieve within the existing timeframe".

In May, Mr Jarrold told C+D that the board had made dispensing errors a fast-track issue and hoped to pass secondary legislation to decriminalise them under section 60 of the Health Act by the end of 2014. But there was still "a huge amount of detailed work" to do before a consultation on the draft changes to the law was made available, he said at the time.

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