The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has revealed that pharmacists – when “absent or treated as absent” – will be able to “authorise” pharmacy technicians to hand out “checked and bagged prescriptions” next year, starting on January 7, 2026, it today (December 12) revealed.
These changes are part of the government’s plans to reform community pharmacy supervision, which the Department of Health and Social Care (DH) published draft legislation for in July.
The reforms aim to “enable pharmacists to deliver more patient-facing clinical services” and allow pharmacy technicians to “maximise their contribution to pharmaceutical care”, the regulator said.
Read more: Chains may put ‘financial gain’ over supervision safety, Lords warn
The GPhC will “begin a public consultation” on the proposed supporting standards and rules “shortly” once some “final changes” have been made to the current drafts.
And the “remaining provisions” of supervision reforms will then come into effect in around 12 months’ time, from December 10, 2026, once the GPhC, the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and professional leadership bodies have “published supporting professional standards and guidance”, it said.
These include allowing pharmacists to authorise a pharmacy technician to “undertake or supervise the preparation, assembly, dispensing and sale and supply of medicines” that would otherwise need to be performed “by or under the supervision” of a pharmacist, it added.
Pressure
According to the GPhC, the new standards and rules will “clarify and strengthen the organisational governance arrangements for registered pharmacies”, particularly for superintendent pharmacists and responsible pharmacists.
GPhC chief standards officer Lynsey Cleland said that the public consultation will “give everyone the opportunity to give their views and help shape the final versions” of the standards.
Read more: ‘Many’ pharmacists against supervision reforms, DH admits
It comes after members of the House of Lords warned in October that pharmacy supervision reforms could create “pressure or targets” that put “financial gain” above “absolute safety”.
Meanwhile, the DH finally published the long-awaited draft legislation on community pharmacy supervision reform in July, noting at the time that it was “expected to come into effect by the end of 2025”.
It explained that “the bulk of the measures will have a one-year transition period to allow for the development of professional standards and guidance”.
Read more: ‘Common-sense’: DH publishes draft supervision legislation
In the government’s response to the pharmacy supervision consultation, however, it revealed that “many individuals” did not support the proposals.
“While professional leadership bodies, trade bodies and individual pharmacy technicians mostly agreed with the proposals, we recognise that many individual pharmacists responding to the consultation did not,” it said at the time.
