The petition – accompanied by a letter sent directly to the GPhC – calls for the regulator to review its most recent assessment, citing the “unrealistic calculations” the students were expected to do in the given time.

It claims that the June exam gave students enough time to “go back and check their calculations”, whereas in September, students were “barely able to complete 30 calculations [in the allowed time], let alone the allocated 40”.

The letter to the GPhC argues that the September exam “showed that being a competent pharmacist is [in] the hands of the GPhC" and not the “level of hard work” that students put in.

C+D has been contacted by a number of students and tutors with complaints about the exam, and has spoken to Umm Muhammad, who started the petition under a pseudonym.

The GPhC insists there were no differences in difficulty level between the June and September exams. 

A “traumatic experience”

But Mohammed Moosa, a pre-registration trainee, said there was a “vast difference” between the June and September papers, and called for an external body to review them.

“The GPhC needs to accept its mistakes and to communicate with students more effectively in the near future, and help those who are in the unfortunate position of September 2016 being their final sitting,” Mr Moosa said.

The students who sat the June exam were the first to take the regulator's revamped assessment, which was designed to focus on "patient-facing pharmacy practice" and "evaluate if trainees can demonstrate the knowledge and skills required by early career pharmacists to practise safely and effectively". June's registration exam pass mark was the lowest for six years.

But pre-reg tutor Mitesh Patel stressed that the majority of students “found it difficult to even finish [the exam]” as the questions were “extremely long and bulky”.

“A lot of the students have become disheartened and demotivated after taking this exam,” Mr Patel told C+D. “It is important when marking the papers [that] the pass mark should be adjusted.”

A pre-reg student who chose to remain anonymous said the exam paper was “not on topic” and was rather a “random pool of questions, which left much down to guess work.”

Oneesa Shah, another student who took the exam, described the experience of sitting the exam as “traumatic”.

Same time limits

In response, the GPhC stressed the time limits for the June and September exams were the same.

It added that the results of the exam would be released on October 28, and the board of assessor’s report – which will evaluate the assessment – would be presented to the council in November.