PHB 11

Bil Iechyd y Cyhoedd (Cymru)

Public Health (Wales) Bill

Ymateb gan: Y Cyngor Fferyllol Cyffredinol

Response from: General Pharmaceutical Council

13 December 2016

Dear Sir or Madam

Consultation on the Public Health (Wales) Bill

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) is the regulator for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and registered pharmacy premises in England, Scotland and Wales. It is our job to protect, promote and maintain the health, safety and wellbeing of members of the public by upholding standards and public trust in pharmacy.

Our main work includes:

· setting standards for the education and training of pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and approving and accrediting their qualifications and training

· maintaining a register of pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and pharmacies

· setting the standards that pharmacy professionals have to meet throughout their careers

· investigating concerns that pharmacy professionals are not meeting our standards, and taking action to restrict their ability to practise when this is necessary to protect patients and the public

· setting standards for registered pharmacies which require them to provide a safe and effective service to patients

· inspecting registered pharmacies to check if they are meeting our standards

We welcome the opportunity to respond to the consultation on the Public Health (Wales) Bill (the Bill) in the NHS. Whilst the consultation document as a whole is of interest to us we have limited our response to areas where we feel our work is directly relevant to the proposals.

We continue to support the direction proposed in Part 6, Pharmaceutical Services, of the Bill, as expressed in our previous response to the consultation on the Public Health White Paper in July 2014. In particular, the acknowledgement that pharmacy can play a wider role in improving public health throughout Wales.

Our new standards for pharmacy professionals which will come into force in May 2017, sets out our approach to promoting person-centred professionalism by pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. We believe our approach aligns with the intent of the Bill, and highlights that pharmacy professionals play a vital role in delivering care and helping people to maintain and improve their health, safety and wellbeing. The professionalism they demonstrate is central to maintaining trust and confidence in pharmacy.

We believe the proposed changes will provide the Welsh Government with useful levers to ensure pharmacies are able to provide services that are both responsive to, and meet the needs of, the people in their area. We agree that it is equally important that these needs are reviewed and assessed periodically, based on local circumstances.

We are committed to ensuring registered pharmacies provide safe and effective care. Pharmacy professionals contribute to people’s wellbeing by providing services that meet local needs. We support the approach to provide powers to take action against pharmacists or pharmacies to ensure they are meeting their NHS Terms of Service contractual obligations consistently. We are keen to work with our colleagues at the Local Health Boards to ensure that we are informed of any matters that may have a fitness to practise implication.

In addition, we look forward to working with the Local Health Boards in the future to share relevant information to assist our work including inspections, and if necessary, inform the development of the pharmaceutical needs assessment.

We understand much of the detail regarding implementation of these proposed changes will be set out in the regulations. We are more than happy to meet with the Welsh Government and Local Health Board colleagues to discuss these proposals and drafting changes to the regulations in further detail, if this would be helpful.

If you would like further information on any of the points in this response, or any other aspects of the GPhC’s work, please do not hesitate to contact us on the details provided below.

Yours sincerely

Darren Hughes

Director for Wales

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