The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) is trialling an independent complaints review service as it tries to get on top of its fitness-to-practise caseload backlog and resolve concerns quicker.
The GPhC’s chief enforcement officer Dionne Spence said the Pharmacy Complaints Resolution Service (PCRS), which launches in mid-January and will be piloted for nine months, “will test alternative approaches to handling concerns within the pharmacy sector”.
She said almost 90 per cent of concerns the GPhC receives do not require a formal regulatory investigation and it is hoped the PCRS will resolve those concerns more quickly and cut out delays that have seen registrants waiting months and even years for an outcome.
Cerian Screen, a pharmacist based in Wales, told Independent Community Pharmacist (ICP) the GPhC took two years to exonerate her of allegations she prescribed outside of her competence, leaving her suspended and unable to practise during that time.
“One of our continued challenges is the sheer volume of concerns we receive,” Spence said. “While many healthcare regulators receive concerns equivalent to 0.5-1.5 per cent of their register annually, at the GPhC it's over 10 per cent – around 10,000 concerns a year.”
She said PCRS was “not intended to replace regulatory action where there are serious concerns about patient safety, professionalism or public confidence”.
“We are exploring whether some concerns could be addressed more effectively through earlier, constructive resolution, while maintaining our core focus on public protection,” she added.
Spence said the GPhC is working with the law firm Nockolds “to develop the proof of concept and refine the service model”
“This includes considering the types of concerns that may be suitable for referral and the approaches that could support resolution, reflection, learning and improvement where appropriate,” she added.
She said the project is being commissioned through its “established procurement and governance processes”.
The GPhC has failed to pass the Professional Standards Authority’s standard on wrapping up fitness-to-practise cases in a timely manner eight years in a row.
A freedom of information request by ICP revealed four pharmacists who went before fitness-to-practise proceedings and were eventually exonerated by the GPhC since January 2021 served a suspension that prevented them from working. The longest suspension was 1,339 days.
Spence said the PCRS was “an important step towards removing non-regulatory concerns out of the Council's oversight”.
“(This will ensure) we are able to focus resources on getting regulatory concerns resolved quicker and more proportionately and reducing the emotional and financial toll that formal proceedings bring,” she said.
