Each month I prepare a note of the most interesting or important regulatory developments in community pharmacy over the preceding month.
During July 2022, these were:
- A new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care was appointed on 5 July – Steve Barclay MP.
- The GPhC announced a new fitness to practise process to try and tackle the consistent over-representation of Black and Minority Ethnic pharmacy professionals in fitness to practise cases. From October 2022, case papers placed before the GPhC’s Investigating Committee will be redacted of information which could reveal a registrant’s ethnicity, including the registrant’s name, place of birth, religion and University attended.
- The Pharmacy Representation Review Steering Group’s proposals were adopted by PSNC and divided into eight workstreams which will make up a Transforming Pharmacy Representation (TAPR) Programme. The eight workstreams of TAPR will be Vision and Strategy, Influencing and Negotiation, Governance, Finance and Levy, LPC Support, Engagement and Joint Working, Branding and Visual Awareness and Communications. Robbie Turner, formerly of RPS, has been appointed as PSNC’s new Chief Transformation Officer to lead the TAPR programme of work.
- PSNC also announced a decision to change its name to Community Pharmacy England with effect from April 2023.
- The UK Commission on Pharmacy Professional Leadership sought expressions of interest from frontline pharmacy professionals to participate in any of its five working groups (Leadership, Policy and Professionalism, Regulatory Support, Professional Education and Training, Regional, Country and International Relations and Engagement, Scope of Practice of Future Pharmacy Professionals). Further details and the application form can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/2a5fkmcw and the deadline to apply is 5 August 2022.
- The UK COVID-19 Inquiry started to accept invitations for Core Participate status in respect of Module 1 of the Inquiry. Module 1 will consider the extent to which the risk of a pandemic was properly identified and planned for and whether the UK was ready for that eventuality. In examining the UK’s preparedness for whole-system civil emergencies, Module 1 will look at resourcing, the system of risk management and pandemic readiness. It will also scrutinise government decision-making and seek to identify whether lessons were learned from earlier incidents and simulations and from international practices and procedures.