You have just had a letter

A complaint, concern or fitness to practise investigation has been raised and you need to respond. Start here, and start now — evidence built early always reads better than evidence assembled the week before a deadline.

You are preparing your response

You are writing to the regulator, or working with your union, professional body or insurer, and need documented CPD and written reflection to put behind what you say.

Your case is going further

The matter is heading towards a Fitness to Practise Committee hearing, and you need to show sustained change rather than good intentions.

You are applying for restoration

You are off the register and working towards going back on it. Evidence of what you have done in the meantime is the heart of a restoration application, and you do not need to be registered to take this.

Nothing has been raised

You want your practice to stand up to scrutiny, and verifiable CPD in your record at the same time.

Professional boundaries

Boundaries with patients and colleagues, dual relationships in a community setting, and the prohibition on romantic or sexual relationships with patients. Standard 6.

Dispensing errors and near misses

What happened, how it was reported, and whether the response afterwards showed learning or defensiveness. The error is rarely the whole of the concern. Standards 5 and 8.

Confidentiality in a public-facing setting

Conversations at the counter, records left visible, and information shared with a relative or carer without a basis for doing so. Standard 7.

Probity, honesty and dishonesty

Accuracy in records and claims, declaring conflicts, and allegations of dishonesty — the category regulators treat most seriously. Standard 6.

Social media and digital conduct

What you post, how you respond to reviews, patient contact through personal accounts, and the blurring of professional and personal online. Standard 6.

Duty of candour and adverse events

Being open when something goes wrong, apologising properly, and the difference between explaining and defending. Standard 8.

Overview of professionalism

Defining professionalism in pharmacy practice, why it matters, and the GPhC’s role in setting and upholding standards.

Core principles

Eight lessons: patient-centred care, integrity and honesty, accountability and responsibility, confidentiality and privacy, effective communication, respect and dignity, teamwork and collaboration, and reflective practice.

Standards for pharmacy professionals

The GPhC’s nine standards, and how they are applied in day-to-day pharmacy practice.

Professional boundaries and ethical conduct

Boundaries with patients and colleagues, and the GPhC’s own guidance on where the lines sit.

Breaches, consequences and remediation

What a breach looks like, what follows from one, the regulatory actions available, and the practical steps remediation involves.

Conclusion and assessment

Key takeaways, followed by a post-module assessment. Your certificate is issued on completion.

Standards for pharmacy professionals

The GPhC’s nine standards, applying equally to pharmacists and pharmacy technicians whatever the setting. They are what you must demonstrate to join the register and remain fit to practise, and each year you complete a declaration that you meet all of them.

The nine standards

Provide person-centred care; work in partnership with others; communicate effectively; maintain, develop and use professional knowledge and skills; use professional judgement; behave in a professional manner; respect and maintain the person’s confidentiality and privacy; speak up when they have concerns or when things go wrong; and demonstrate leadership.

Standard 6

Behave in a professional manner. Where a concern is about conduct rather than a clinical decision, this is usually the standard engaged — and the one a response should be written against.

Standard 8

Speak up when they have concerns or when things go wrong. The candour and raising-concerns standard, and the one that reaches how you responded after an error as well as the error itself.

Reflective account

A written account showing how you meet the standards in your own practice. Since 1 January 2026 it can be written against any of the nine standards, rather than the three the GPhC used to select each year.

The seven-day declaration

The GPhC requires you to tell it within seven days if you become aware of an issue that may affect your fitness to practise — a health issue, a police caution, or an investigation into criminal or professional wrongdoing. It is explicit that you should not wait for renewal, even if you believe patients would not be put at risk.

Remediation

The GPhC’s own fitness to practise glossary describes it as evidence of the steps a pharmacy professional has identified or taken to put right the concern with their practice. Identified, taken and evidenced — all three, not one of them.

Fitness to Practise Committee

The committee that hears a case referred to it and decides what, if anything, should happen to your registration. The GPhC investigates; the committee determines.

Restoration to the register

The route back for someone who has been removed from, or has come off, the register. Evidence of what you have done in the meantime sits at the heart of the application, which is why registration is not a prerequisite for this course.

Insight

Understanding what went wrong, why it happened, and the effect it had on patients, colleagues and public confidence in the profession. The element most often described as lacking.

Standard 1 — Provide person-centred care

The care itself: the person in front of you, their needs and their circumstances. It sits behind concerns about whether someone was listened to, and whether what followed actually served them.

Standard 2 — Work in partnership with others

With patients, carers, colleagues and other professionals. Handovers, referrals and the things that fall between people are where this one is engaged.

Standard 3 — Communicate effectively

What was said, how it was said, and whether it was understood — at the counter, on the phone and in writing. Complaints about what a patient was or was not told land here.

Standard 4 — Maintain, develop and use professional knowledge and skills

Keeping current, and using what you know. It engages where something was done, continued or accepted beyond what your knowledge actually supported.

Standard 5 — Use professional judgement

The standard behind clinical and supply decisions: what you weighed, what you decided, and whether you can explain it afterwards.

Standard 6 — Behave in a professional manner

The professionalism standard, and where most conduct concerns land: boundaries with patients and colleagues, honesty, conduct online, and behaviour that affects public confidence in pharmacy.

Standard 7 — Respect and maintain the person’s confidentiality and privacy

Difficult in a public-facing setting, and frequently engaged: conversations at the counter, records left visible, and information shared with a relative or carer without a basis for doing so.

Standard 8 — Speak up when they have concerns or when things go wrong

Candour and raising concerns in one standard. It covers a dispensing error or near miss, how it was reported, and what happened next — and it reaches concerns about others as well as your own practice.

Standard 9 — Demonstrate leadership

Not confined to those with a formal role. It engages where a responsible or superintendent pharmacist, or anyone setting the tone in a team, is asked what they did about a problem they could see.

All nine are open for reflection

From 1 January 2026 the reflective account can be written against any of the nine standards, rather than the three the GPhC used to select each year.

Your standard is now your subject

If a concern engages standard 6, you can now reflect formally against standard 6. Before, the subject was chosen for you and might have had nothing to do with the matter in hand.

One piece of writing, two jobs

The reflection that answers the concern can also be the reflection you submit. Worth writing once, properly, rather than twice, thinly.

One set, two roles

The standards apply to pharmacists and pharmacy technicians equally, so this applies whichever part of the register you are on.

Stage one — the concern is received and triaged

The GPhC decides whether what it has received raises a concern about fitness to practise. Concerns where patient safety could be at risk are prioritised.

Stage two — initial enquiries and investigation

If the information raises concerns, an investigation usually follows. The GPhC says investigations can take between three and nine months from the point the concern was first raised — which is also the window in which evidence of change can be built and put in front of it.

What is being assessed

Whether you demonstrate the skills, knowledge, character and health needed to do your job safely and effectively. The process exists to protect patient safety and to consider future risk, not to punish a past error in isolation.

Stage three — the Investigating Committee

It meets in private and can close the case with no further action, close it after giving advice or a warning, or refer it to the Fitness to Practise Committee for a full hearing.

Stage four — the Fitness to Practise Committee

Hearings are usually held in public. If the committee decides a pharmacy professional is not fit to practise it can give a warning, set conditions limiting how they practise, suspend them, or remove them from the register.

Only the most serious cases get that far

The GPhC is explicit that only the most serious cases progress to stages three and four. Most concerns end earlier — which is the argument for answering properly at stage two rather than waiting.

Insight

Understanding what went wrong, why it happened, and the effect it had on patients, colleagues and
public confidence in the profession. It is the element most often described as lacking.

Reflection

Setting that understanding down honestly and in your own words, including what you would do differently
and what you have already changed. Reflection is the written record of insight.

Remediation

The concrete steps taken so the same thing does not happen again — training, supervision, changes
to how you work — together with evidence that they happened.

The ethics pair to this course: how a decision was reached, where this one covers how you conducted yourself.

The element assessed in almost every case, whatever the allegation, and the one most often described as lacking.

How to write reflection that reads as understanding rather than regret, in your own words.

Turning insight into concrete, evidenced change that a decision maker can see actually happened.

The forward-looking half of remediation: what you have put in place so it cannot happen again.

What fitness to practise means, how the process works, and what is being assessed at each stage.

Restoring confidence after a concern — with patients, with colleagues and with the regulator.