In a communication to registrants, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has indicated that pharmacists or pharmacy technicians who have a registration renewal deadline between 1st September 2020 and 31st December 2020 will only need to submit a reflective account for revalidation when they renew their registration.
Registrants in the category above will not need to submit a peer discussion record or any planned or unplanned CPD records. The GPhC has reiterated that this may change and will be under review in the coming weeks and months.
In March, the GPhC announced that pharmacists and pharmacy technicians who were due to renew their registration between 20th March 2020 and 31st August 2020 would not have to submit revalidation records, because of the challenges and pressures on pharmacy professionals as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a communication to registrants the Chief Executive of the GPhC Duncan Rudkin commented:
“This approach recognises the importance of resuming revalidation in terms of public assurance, while also taking account of the disruption that will have been caused to any planned learning, as well as the demands that are continuing to be placed on pharmacy professionals during the pandemic.
“We would encourage you to reflect on your experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic when completing your reflective account, although this is not essential.
“You will need to submit your reflective account via myGPhC as usual when renewing your registration; we will be updating myGPhC to reflect this change in requirements.
“Any peer discussion or CPD records that you have already completed can be submitted next year if you choose to do so. You can save these records in myGPhC by moving them to the “excluded” section before you submit your reflective account record.
“Our current intention would be that we will resume revalidation requirements in full after 31 December 2020, but we will keep this under review and provide an update towards the end of the year.”