Five-year review of pharmacists’ CPD to be kept for now, says GPhC

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The pharmacy regulator has decided to keep to the existing five-year cycle for pharmacists to present evidence of their continuing professional development (CPD) while it decides on the future of the “call and review” system. 

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) is advising pharmacists to continue to follow their own personal CPD timetable and to record evidence as normal. 

Duncan Rudkin, the regulator’s chief executive, said it had decided against rescheduling the CPD timetable when its council met on 10 September 2015 because it might confuse registrants. 

“The reason not to reschedule was quite simple – we didn’t want to confuse people. We want people to continue with business as usual,” he said. 

The advice comes as the GPhC continues to work out the detail of its reforms to move away from a five-year CPD cycle to an annual CPD audit which relies on calling in a random selection of CPD records for assessment. 

For the first time the GPhC has come up with a figure for the percentage of records which could be recalled each year. 

It said that if 2.5% of records were selected the number would be statistically significant, and it would mean that pharmacists would be assessed more often than they are now and it would be likely that everybody would know somebody who was being assessed at any one time. 

But Rudkin said the 2.5% was just an illustrative figure and no decision has yet been taken. “I think it is the first time that we have put out a figure but no figure has been agreed,” he said. 

Last updated
Citation
The Pharmaceutical Journal, PJ, 26 September 2015, Vol 295, No 7881;295(7881):DOI:10.1211/PJ.2015.20069380

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