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The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has introduced “a blind proof check” of its exam questions after three errors were found in the regulator’s June 2019 registration assessment.
In minutes from the council’s meeting on 12 September 2019, which were published on 8 October 2019, Damian Day, head of education at the GPhC, said the errors were “both unusual and concerning”.
“As a result, the quality assurance process for the development of questions had been reviewed and would be changed before the September sitting,” he said, adding that this included “the introduction of a blind proof check by pharmacists who had not previously seen the questions”.
Council papers from the September meeting, published ahead of the meeting on 9 September 2019, explained that there “were errors in three questions, for which the Board [of Assessors] apologises”.
It added that the errors were found during the exam “and announcements were made to candidates”.
The Board of Assessors determined that the errors in two questions were “minor and did not materially affect the questions and they were not removed” from the total number of questions.
However, one question in paper two of the exam was removed by the board due to the error and not counted towards candidates’ final mark.
The British Pharmaceutical Students’ Association’s report on the June 2019 registration assessment said it had received “little to no positive feedback” on paper two of the assessment, with 100 respondents claiming it did not reflect the GPhC’s framework for the exam.
