Health Bill

Section 72A clarifies the responsibilities of the pharmacist in charge of the pharmacy. He or she will set out procedures to fulfil his statutory duty to ensure the safe and effective running of the pharmacy. This will include deciding which activities involving the preparation, assembly, sale and supply of medicines are to be delegated to suitably trained pharmacy staff, ensuring that they are competent to take on these tasks safely. These are important responsibilities which ensure the safe sale and supply of medicines and which safeguard the public. In the information paper that we published in January, to which I referred earlier, we outlined our thinking on regulations relating to any requirements additional to registration that a pharmacist might need to take on these responsibilities. For example, a responsible pharmacist might need to have been qualified as a registered pharmacist for a number of years and, for a community pharmacy, have experience of working in a registered pharmacy in that setting. We have also made clear our intention to consult all interested parties on the development of these regulations. We will, for example, need to consider the timing of their introduction in order to allow the professional regulatory bodies, pharmacy owners and others to put in place arrangements to provide pharmacists wishing to take on this important role the opportunity to gain appropriate training and experience. We clearly recognise the need for the pharmacist workforce to be able to meet any such conditions that are set out in regulations and to maintain the public’s ready access to pharmaceutical services. We will carefully consider all these issues with interested parties in determining what conditions might be set to ensure a responsible pharmacist is able effectively to meet his or her statutory duties. We are not in any way diminishing the professional qualification; we are trying to ensure that the training and experience are fit for purpose in the particular set of circumstances in which a registered pharmacist might find himself.