Pharmacy professionals are more likely to face severe disciplinary sanctions in Great Britain (GB) than the US, a comparative study has found.
Published in the International Journal of Pharmacy Practice on September 18, the study compared disciplinary outcomes for pharmacy professions in 1,868 GB cases and 22,129 US cases over a ten-year period.
“Significant” difference
Researchers classified disciplinary outcomes into four categories: warnings, conditions, suspension and erasure, and applied statistical testing to identify any differences in the severity of outcomes between the two regions.
The results “revealed a significant transatlantic difference in disciplinary outcomes against pharmacy practitioners”, they said.
Some 79% of GB cases led to “severe sanctions”, compared to just 38% of US cases, where “lenient sanctions” were the most common outcome.
Read more: ‘Significant rise’: GPhC received almost 10,000 concerns this year
The authors of the study concluded that while “some level of self-regulation is inherent” to a profession, the “current extent in the US is excessive”.
“Although professional autonomy is deeply rooted, it shouldn’t be immune to reform, especially given growing evidence that professions are failing to uphold their responsibilities to the public,” they said.
They added that the findings are indicative of “wider features of regulatory design and execution” and highlight the need for “further research into the correlation between regulatory design and disciplinary outcomes”.
Read more: GPhC acted on almost 75% of whistleblower disclosures this year
It comes after the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) annual report revealed that the regulator has received almost 10,000 concerns this year, an increase of almost 35% from last year.
And it follows the regulator revealing that it took action on almost 75% of the whistleblowing disclosures received this year.
