The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) will this week seek approval from its governing council to implement new standards for the initial education and training of pharmacy technicians.
In papers shared ahead of a council meeting on July 16, the GPhC said it plans to raise the level of study within the regulated qualifications framework (RQF) from level 3 to level 4, with the changes “designed to mitigate the risks to patient safety and public confidence”.
The current standards were published almost ten years ago, and the GPhC said “considerable developments” since then mean that pharmacy technicians “now contribute far beyond traditional dispensing roles on which the 2017 standards are based”.
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Pharmacy technicians can currently administer and supply certain medicines under patient group directions and, under new supervision legislation, pharmacists will be able to authorise pharmacy technicians to sell or supply medicines or supervise others who do so from December.
The GPhC said the “current assumption” is that new courses accredited against the new standards will begin in autumn 2028, but it will extend the withdrawal period of level 3 courses “by at least a year”.
This means the “complete implementation of the new standards across Great Britain will not be before autumn 2029”.
“Necessary and proportionate”
The GPhC said its consultation on the new standards, which ended in December, received 880 responses demonstrating “broad support for the proposed reforms”.
The consultation saw 77% agree with increasing the studying to level 4, and in January, the Royal College of Pharmacy (RCPharm) announced its support for proposals to increase the minimum level of pharmacy technician education.
But “some of the large national community pharmacy representative bodies” opposed the move, the GPhC noted, raising “concerns about potential recruitment and retention challenges for the community pharmacy technician workforce”.
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And while broadly supportive, the RCPharm did say that increasing the minimum qualification level could create barriers to entering the profession, while the Company Chemists’ Association warned it would “exacerbate workforce shortages” and cost employers and the government £150m per year.
The GPhC acknowledged the concerns and noted that the abolition of NHS England “creates uncertainty regarding future leadership, funding, and implementation oversight”.
It said this is why it has proposed “a longer phased implementation” that means the new standards will not be fully implemented until autumn 2029.
The regulator said level 4 study “provides an increased level of autonomy, decision making, leadership and service contribution skills” and that increasing the qualification level “at this stage is both necessary and proportionate”.
Checking and training time
The new standards will make final accuracy checking, which is not currently mandatory, a “core competence”, with the GPhC saying the responsibility “aligns with the evolving expectations” of pharmacy technicians.
It added that 76% of respondents to the consultation were in favour of the change, including 89% of organisations.
But they were also concerned about the “significant supervised practice required to develop this competency” and whether pharmacy technicians’ “readiness could be reliably achieved within the current training timeframe without compromising patient safety”, it said.
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The regulator confirmed that there will be “additional flexibilities” in training delivery so that trainees can complete the minimum 14 supervised hours per week of work-based experience “over a longer period”, after concerns were raised in the consultation about “limited supervisory capacity” caused by “staffing shortages” and “service pressures”.
The current two-year requirement for training will remain, and the new proposed entry requirements will include at least one science qualification “equivalent to at least RQF level 2”, it said.
Some 89% of consultation respondents supported pharmacy technician programmes being “regulated by the relevant national qualifications regulators” and “accredited or recognised by the GPhC”, and the regulator said it proposes to “proceed with this change”.
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If the GPhC’s governing council agrees to the new standards, the next stages of the implementation process will include “apprenticeship development, course design and accreditation”.
The regulator said it anticipates that its work with Skills England to develop the level 4 apprenticeship for pharmacy technicians will begin in “early 2027 and take up to 12 months to complete”.
It follows the GPhC initially setting out plans to revise pharmacy technicians’ education in July 2025.
