Whistleblowing disclosures made by pharmacy workers to the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) have risen by more than 200% since last year, a new report last week (September 25) revealed.
The GPhC’s annual whistleblowing disclosures report for 2025, published in conjunction with eight other health and social care professional regulators, said it had received “74 disclosures of information” between April 1 2024 and March 31 2025.
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The figure represents a 208% increase on the previous year, when the GPhC reported a total of just 24 disclosures.
And in 2023 and 2022, the regulator received 21 and 25 whistleblowing disclosures respectively, according to reports for those years.
The GPhC said it had concluded its enquiries on 69 of the 74 disclosures made over the 2024/25 reporting period, while five were “still under investigation”.
Of the 69 cases that were concluded, 62 - 90% - resulted in regulatory action such as through inspection or fitness-to-practise (FtP) processes, it added.
This action includes 50 cases concluded “by sharing information with inspection colleagues for follow-up action”, seven “concluded with guidance or a reminder about the professional standards” and five investigated and then closed with “no further action”, the regulator told C+D.
Of the remaining seven concerns, three were closed with “no action taken” after initial assessment and four were referred to an alternative organisation, it said.
“Variety of case types”
GPhC chief enforcement officer Dionne Spence said that “there is no standalone reason” for the spike in disclosures this year, but that the regulator last year “set up a dedicated page on whistleblowing” on its website to provide information on how to raise a concern.
“The disclosures cover a variety of case types including health and safety, staffing issues and online-related,” she added.
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“They also include pharmacy systems issues [such as] dispensing, medicines management issues [such as] prescribing and medicines storage and supply [but] no particular type of case stands out in frequency,” she told C+D.
It comes after the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA) last week told the GPhC it was taking “too long” to process fitness-to-practise (FtP) cases.
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The PSA said in its latest monitoring report that the GPhC did not meet its standard 15, which relates to “timeliness of FtP investigations”, and that while it is “one standard out of 18, it does represent a critical part of the work of the GPhC in protecting the public”.
The GPhC said it is undergoing a “comprehensive improvement programme” to “fast-track the progression and resolution of [its] older cases” and to “improve the efficiency” of how it manages investigations and hearings.
