Privacy policy

You will find more details of how we use the information you give us when you register, renew and revalidate in the privacy policy in myGPhC.

Information we collect

When you apply to join the register

We are required by the Pharmacy Order 2010 to make sure that applicants are suitably qualified and fit to practise before they join our registers. We use the information you give us when you apply to process and assess your application to perform our regulatory role in accordance with our statutory functions. The information we ask for includes:

• contact details
• details of your qualifications, training and experience
• tutor or designated supervisor information
• employer information
• counter-signatory information
• copies of documents to prove your identity
• payment information
• evidence of English language skills
• information about issues that may affect your fitness to practise. This may include information about your health or criminal cautions or convictions. If you make a fitness to practise declaration, we may ask relevant other people or organisations for information to help us assess your application.

Pharmacist applicants - if you have just completed your foundation training, we will ask your designated supervisor to certify that you have completed the training necessary to register. This process happens through myGPhC and your supervisor will view and certify the information you have provided in your application.

We also ask for diversity information, which we use to meet our duties to promote and maintain equality of opportunity or treatment under the Equality Act 2010, but you do not have to provide this information.

While you are registered

When you are on the register, we ask you to tell us each year about your professional development as part of revalidation. We also ask you to declare any fitness to practise issues, which may include information about your health or criminal cautions or convictions. 

If we receive a concern about your practice, we will collect relevant information from you and others to review and investigate where appropriate. Depending on the nature of the concern, we could contact your employer, relevant NHS organisations or other authorities, such as the police or other regulators and witnesses to any incident that is alleged to have taken place.

We may ask you to undergo medical testing or a health assessment if this is relevant to assessing your fitness to practise.

If you apply to add an annotation to your register entry, (for example if you gain an independent prescribing qualification), we will record your application and certification.

We may collect information from you as part of a pharmacy inspection but unless you are the responsible pharmacist, owner or superintendent, you are not usually identified in reports.

How we will use your information

We are required by the Pharmacy Order 2010 to make sure that registered pharmacy professionals are appropriately qualified, meet our standards and are fit to practise so that people using pharmacy services receive safe and effective care. We use personal information of the pharmacy professionals to help us meet those objectives and to help us meet our legal obligations and to discharge our statutory functions.

If you join the register of pharmacists or pharmacy technicians we process your personal information for reasons which include:

• checking your identity, assessing your qualifications, experience and fitness to practise when you apply to join the register
• updating the registers
• administering and maintaining your registration, including taking payments
• revalidating your registration and making sure that you have completed relevant professional development during the year 
• making sure that pharmacies and pharmacy professionals practise safely
• processing and investigating concerns about pharmacies or registered pharmacy professionals 
• conducting fitness to practise hearings
• monitoring the ongoing fitness to practise of registered pharmacy professionals
• sending you communications about your registration and fitness to practise matters, as necessary to support our statutory objectives and when required by law
• compiling statistics and research
• dealing with questions, concerns or complaints

There is more information about what we do if you make a fitness to practise declaration on our website.

How we will share your information

We publish and share information to meet our objectives in line with the Pharmacy Order 2010 and other legislation. We explain how we do this below and in the section on sharing personal information.

GPhC registers

We are required by law to publish registers of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. The registers contain your name, registration number, registration status, date of renewal and the town of your address. If you have received a fitness to practise sanction, your register entry will contain a link to relevant documents, in line with our publication and disclosure policy. Also available in Welsh.

For pharmacists, the register also says if you are an independent or supplementary prescriber and if you are a superintendent pharmacist, the name of the relevant pharmacy.

We make data from the public registers available via a licensed subscription service. This does not include a live link to fitness to practise documents. 

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we introduced a pharmacy professionals temporary register and a provisional pharmacist register which have now closed and are no longer published, although we have kept records of members of those registers.  

Fitness to practise

If you are involved in fitness to practise hearings, we publish:

• schedules of forthcoming fitness to practise hearings
• determinations of public fitness to practise hearings in a list for 12 months
• fitness to practise information in your register entry, in line with our publication and disclosure policy. Also available in Welsh.

Other disclosures

We use third party reviewers to assess revalidation information. They will access information through the secure myGPhC portal and will only see revalidation records they are allocated to review. They do not see the identity of the person who has submitted the record.

We use external lawyers to carry out work on some of our investigations and hearings. We use external recorders to record hearings of the Fitness to Practise Committee and Appeals Committee. 

We disclose information to other people or organisations to carry out our statutory functions and in the public interest. This includes notifying the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) or Disclosure Scotland about any relevant information. We give more information about this in our publication and disclosure policy (also available in Welsh) - and in the section below on sharing information.

If you wish to apply for registration to practise in another country, you may need to ask us for a certificate of current professional status and fitness to practise history to be sent to the relevant regulator. Find out more about registration to practise in another country.

How long we will keep your information

We keep your registration records while you are registered and for at least 10 years after you leave the register, depending on the reason you leave the register. Revalidation records are usually kept for two years in myGPhC after you submit them or successfully complete the process. If we investigate a concern about your practice, we keep the case file for as long as necessary for our regulatory purposes. We keep determinations of any fitness to practise hearings as part of your registration record.   
 

The Pharmacy Order 2010 and other legislation sets our objectives to assure the standards for registered pharmacies. We hold information about you in your role as superintendent pharmacist of a pharmacy, so that we can contact you as the representative of the pharmacy owner. This will include maintaining the pharmacy's registration, contacting you about inspections, concerns and action we may take if your pharmacy does not meet our standards. Your register entry as a pharmacist will show the details of the relevant pharmacy for which you are the superintendent.

Your register entry as a pharmacist will show the details of the relevant pharmacy for which you are the superintendent. Please also see how we use your information as a registered pharmacist.

The Pharmacy Order 2010 and other legislation sets our objectives to assure the standards of registered pharmacies. If you own a pharmacy, you will have provided us with information about the pharmacy in your application to register the pharmacy premises with us. We will hold this information to contact you, to process your registration application and maintain your pharmacy’s registration. This will include contacting you about inspections and action we may take if your pharmacy does not meet our standards. We publish owner names on the register of pharmacy premises. You can see more information about how long inspection reports and details of any enforcement actions appear on our register and forthcoming inspection website in our publication and disclosure policy. Also available in Welsh.      

Information we collect

We are required by the Pharmacy Order 2010 to make sure that pharmacy professionals have appropriate qualifications, training and experience. If you apply to join the pharmacist foundation training scheme, overseas pharmacists' assessment programme (OSPAP) and MPharm courses where training is administered through the GPhC, we collect information including:

• your contact details
• your qualifications and relevant experience
• evidence of English language skills
• counter-signatory and reference information
• copies of documents to prove your identity
• payment information
• details of your tutor or designated supervisor, placement and progress in your placement
• details of fitness to practise issues, which may include information about health or criminal convictions

We also ask for diversity information, but you do not have to fill this in. We use this data to meet our duties under the Equality Act 2010.

When you sit the registration assessment, we receive your answer sheets and marks. You may give information about health or other issues if you make a request for a reasonable adjustment.

How we will use your information

We will use your information in line with our statutory functions to make sure that people working and providing care in a pharmacy setting, and who may go on to become registered pharmacy professionals are properly qualified, trained and fit to practise. This includes:

• assessing your eligibility and fitness to join the schemes
• administering and monitoring training placements
• in the case of OSPAP, sending your approved application to your selected training providers
• administering the pre-registration assessment
• assessing applications for reasonable adjustments
• marking and quality assuring the registration assessment
• processing any concerns or fitness to practise issues
• dealing with questions or complaints
• assessing applications to join the register of pharmacists
• compiling statistics and research

If you give us information as part of a request for a reasonable adjustment that we consider likely to affect your fitness to practise, we will hold that information and use it when we assess your application to join the register. This is in line with our objective to protect the public.

How we will share your information

We will ask your supervisor to share with us records of your progress in your placement. We will also ask them to sign off your training when it is complete. If we receive a concern about your fitness to practise, we will share details with your supervisor, employer or university (for sandwich course students) or the relevant Statutory Education Body with responsibility for funding foundation training placements in the case of a concern relating to a foundation trainee pharmacist. Depending on the nature of the concern, we may also share information with law enforcement agencies, or other competent bodies or authorities, such as the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) and Disclosure Scotland (DS), where we have to comply with a legal obligation, as well as in cases where we consider there is a public interest in doing so. 

When you sit the registration assessment, we share a list of candidates and details required for identity verification and invigilation with people involved in administering the assessment at the relevant  assessment centre. We use third parties to mark answer sheets and analyse the results to quality assure the assessment. We also use a third party to analyse the assessment results by school of pharmacy, age and ethnicity of candidates. We share this data in pseudonymised form.  

If you make a request for a reasonable adjustment, the Adjustments Committee will assess your application for adjustment. 

If you give us diversity information, we use it to meet our duties under the Equality Act 2010.

We may disclose information to other organisations in the exercise of our statutory functions and in the public interest. Further information is given in our publication and disclosure policy (also available in Welsh) - and in the section below on sharing information.

How long we will keep your information

If you join the register, we will keep your training record as part of your registration record.

If you make any declarations about your fitness to practise these will be held for two years after you join the register. If you apply for a reasonable adjustment to sit the registration assessment, this information will be held for two years after you join the register. If a concern about your practice is raised, we will keep the information while it is necessary for regulatory purposes.

If you do not join the register, we will keep your information for up to two years after the time your eligibility to apply expires. If we refuse your application on fitness to practise grounds, we will keep it while it is necessary for regulatory purposes.   
 

Information we collect and how we use it

We are required by the Pharmacy Order 2010 to make sure that pharmacy professionals have appropriate qualifications, training and experience. We use information on students as follows:

• If you apply to join the Overseas Pharmacist Assessment Programme (OSPAP), we ask you to complete the application form. We use this information to assess your application and will send your approved application to your selected training providers.
• At the relevant stage of your MPharm degree or OSPAP your university will tell us and we will add your name, date of birth and qualification to our database. Your university will tell us your results at the end of your degree. This is so that we have a record of people eligible to join foundation training and can check you have the right qualification when you apply for foundation training.
• If you are on a sandwich or integrated 5-year MPharm, which has a practice training element, your university will tell us at the relevant stage. This allows us to record your training, which is necessary so that you are eligible for registration. For more information on how we use this information, see the foundation training section.
• When you pass your pharmacy technician qualification, your course provider will tell us so that we know you have the right qualification to register.
• When you pass your pharmacist independent prescriber qualification, your course provider will tell us so that we know you have the right qualification to add an annotation to your registration.

Occasionally, a course provider may share information about an individual student’s fitness to practise. We will use this information to assess your fitness to join the register.

We collect other information from universities and course providers related to admissions in anonymised form. This includes high level grouped information relating to ethnicity, disability, age, nationality and course numbers about the performance of different student cohorts.  We also collect diversity information to monitor the diversity of student groups to support our duties under the Equality Act 2010. All information is in aggregate form and individuals cannot be identified from it.

How long we will keep your information

We keep records on individual students while it is necessary to assess applications to the register or for regulatory purposes. If you join the register or add an annotation to your registration, we will keep details of your qualification as part of your registration record.  
 

We collect contact details of people involved in running courses of education and training so that we can keep in touch with you to run our quality assurance programme and monitor the quality of courses. If you are teaching on one of these courses, your employer may give us information about your qualifications and experience for quality assurance purposes. We hold this information for at least one cycle of re-approval and for each step of the accreditation process.   

We hold your contact details for the purpose of administering the foundation training scheme. We also keep records when you sign off the competence of individual foundation trainees. These are held as part of the trainee’s records and used in assessing their application to register.  

The GPhC is allowed to charge registration fees under the Pharmacy Order 2010 and relevant fees rules. We collect BACS payment information to allow us to process these fees and charges we make for other services where applicable.

If you pay the GPhC by Direct Debit, we collect details of your bank account to allow us to set up the arrangement with your bank and collect payments. This information will be shared with our bank. We keep details of direct debit mandates until the end of the mandate and for a further six years.

If you pay by credit card through myGPhC or Pay by Link, payments are collected by our nominated payment services provider and personal data is retained by that provider in accordance with their legal obligations under relevant legislation.  We only receive a payment notification, and will retain credit card payment notifications for six financial years.

We will not normally share payment information, except as necessary to take a payment, but in some cases may share information with enforcement authorities or banks, for example, if there is a suggestion of fraudulent payments.   
 

We share information with other organisations in the public interest when we carry out our tasks under the Pharmacy Order 2010 and other legislation. We also disclose information when required by other laws, for example, laws that apply to the work of other public authorities.

The Pharmacy Order gives us a duty to cooperate, where appropriate and reasonably practical, with other organisations, such as other regulatory authorities, NHS trusts, employers of pharmacy professionals, the Department of Health and organisations that run GPhC accredited courses. You can find information about the formal arrangements we have with some of these organisations on our website.

We explain more about when we disclose information to other people or organisations in our publication and disclosure policy (also available in Welsh). We will not share your personal data for marketing purposes with any third party.

How we consider the public interest

The Pharmacy Order 2010 enables us to share relevant information, when this is necessary for us to carry out our statutory functions, including when we consider that there is a public interest in sharing information to meet our statutory objectives. These include:

• protecting the health, safety and well-being of the public
• upholding public confidence in the pharmacy professions
• making sure that pharmacy professionals and pharmacies meet our standards

We will consider whether disclosure is justifiable. Is it in the public interest to disclose compared to and balanced with the person’s right to privacy? We consider a person’s rights under data protection legislation, human rights legislation and the common law duty of confidentiality. We review any legal power to make such a disclosure. We also review the nature, purpose, quality, appropriateness, and necessity for the disclosure. We also consider the impact of disclosure, including the potential for damage or distress to the person and weigh that alongside the potential harm that may be caused if we do not disclose information. We must make sure that we comply with the data protection principles, for example, that the information we disclose is limited to what is necessary to achieve the overriding lawful purpose.

We consider the public interest when employers of pharmacy professionals or other agencies involved in recruitment, ask us for personal information in relation to their employees. We also consider it when other public authorities ask us to disclose personal information. For example, NHS organisations may ask us for information to establish the professional standing of a registered pharmacy professional.

We do not usually publish or disclose information about investigations currently taking place, unless we consider it to be in the public interest and proportionate in the circumstances. We want to avoid publishing or disclosing information where there is a risk that it might prejudice or adversely impact an investigation by the GPhC or another organisation.

Freedom of information

Sometimes the GPhC may need to disclose information under the laws covering access to information (usually the Freedom of Information Act 2000). We disclose identifiable personal information only where it is lawful, fair and in the public interest to do so.