The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has written to the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IATE) to remind it that its proposed pharmacist apprenticeship scheme must go through the regulator’s accreditation process.

A 10-day consultation on plans to introduce the five-year apprenticeship, which ended on Sunday, led the GPhC to urge IATE to launch another “more detailed consultation for a longer period.”

Although IATE insisted it had held talks with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) and GPhC on the scheme, there has been concern that the proposals have not been thought through sufficiently. IATE said it wanted approval of the plans by December 31.

Drawing attention to its standards for the initial education and training of pharmacists, the GPhC told IATE it would need to accredit any new pharmacy education and training programme.

“The GPhC is responsible for accrediting and recognising pharmacy courses leading to registration and annotation, including Master of Pharmacy (MPharm) degrees leading to pre-registration and then pharmacist registration,” the GPhC said.

“Any new course of education or training would need to go through our accreditation process, to ensure that it meets the relevant GPhC standards.

“It is not within our remit to decide which courses should be developed; we are required by legislation to accredit any course that meets our standards.”

The RPS recently said it did not contribute to the apprenticeship proposals and was keen to get views from the profession on the issue.

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