The function of the Fitness to Practise Directorate of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain is to monitor and ensure compliance with the standards of conduct, performance and fitness to practise set by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, and with obligations imposed on the profession of pharmacy by statute. Where a person registered with the Society or lawfully conducting a retail pharmacy business fails to comply with those standards and legal obligations, it falls to the Fitness to Practise Directorate to take action to enforce those standards and legal obligations.
Monitoring is performed by the
Inspectorate, who visit community pharmacies on a routine basis and
who investigate any allegations or complaints made against persons
registered with the Society or lawfully conducting a retail pharmacy
business.
For information about the Inspectorate, click here
Compliance is achieved by the
provision of written or verbal advice on the interpretation of the
law and code of ethics, and by publication of decisions of the Society’s
Fitness to Practice Committees.
For information about the advisory service, click here
For information about the Infringements Committee, click here
For information about the Statutory Committee, click here
To read currently available decisions of the Statutory Committee, click here
Enforcement is achieved by bringing
proceedings against a person registered with the Society or lawfully
conducting a retail pharmacy business, either through the Society’s
fitness to practise machinery, or in the Criminal Courts.
For information on how to make a complaint, and for a copy of the complaints
form, click here
Contact:
Tel: 020 7572 2308The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain’s new fitness to practise procedures are governed by the Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians Order 2007.
For the Order, click on the link below:
The Order established three new fitness to practise committees:
The procedures of these committees is set out in the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (Fitness to Practise and Disqualification etc) Rules 2007.
For the Rules, click on the link below:
The chair of the Disciplinary Committee is legally qualified. A legal adviser will be present at proceedings before the Investigating and Health Committees. A clinical adviser will also be present at proceedings before the Health Committee.
The quorum and voting procedures of the Committees, and the role and function of the various advisers is set out in the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (Fitness to Practise and Registration Appeals Committees and Their Advisers) Rules 2007.
For the Rules, click on the link below:
The sections of the Order that deal with fitness to practise matters, and the new Rules, were operative from 30 March 2007. Schedule 2 of the Order sets out transitional provisions for cases that were referred prior to the Order coming into force. For a fact sheet on the transitional provisions, click on the link below:
For a guide to the new complaints procedures, click on the link below:
To make a complaint against a pharmacist please use the new complaints form below:
For guides to proceedings before the new Disciplinary and Health Committees, click on the links below:
The Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians Order 2007 introduced a requirement for the RPSGB to produce an annual statistical report about its fitness to practise processes, and for the RPSGB’s Council to provide its observations on that report.
The first such report* (covering the first year of operation of the new regulatory framework introduced by the Order) has now been published. For the full report, click on the link below:
RPSGB Fitness to Practise annual report 2007
The report’s key findings are summarised in the RPSGB’s Council’s observations. For the Council’s observations, click on the link below:
Observations of the RPSGB's Council
* The data contained in the report relating to the fields of practice of pharmacists whose cases were dealt with by the FTP committees during the period covered by the report may not be fully up to date. The pages that refer to that data are pp7, 15 and 34 of the full report.