Friday, 11^th August 2008

Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland welcomes CHRE Support for New Legislation

The Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland has this morning welcomed the publication of the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence's (CHRE) Annual Performance Review of health professional regulators and the support within the review for a new legal framework for the regulation of pharmacy in Northern Ireland

Society President Raymond Anderson commented:

"It is obviously pleasing to the Society to read the positive comments in the Performance Review about our overall regulatory performance.

We will not be resting on our laurels however and the Society's ongoing modernisation programme will continue to be implemented at pace. Over the next few months we will be introducing Key Performance Indicators, a revised Code of Ethics and a new website with greater accessibility features.

We also look forward to finalising with the Department of Health in Northern Ireland, new legislation that will update the Society's Corporate Governance structure and provide a fresh toolkit of regulatory powers. The Society is therefore grateful that the CHRE has given such strong support in the performance review for "a new legal framework for the regulation of pharmacy in Northern Ireland to be put in place as soon as possible"

ENDS

Editor's notes

•1.       The Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE) is an independent statutory body covering all of the United Kingdom. It was established by parliament in 2003 to ensure consistency and good practice in healthcare regulation.

•2.       There are nine regulators of healthcare professionals in the UK. Each regulator maintains a register of professionals fit to practise in a particular profession. The regulator sets standards of behaviour, education and ethics, and deals with concerns about professionals who are unfit to practise because of poor health, misconduct or poor performance. They can remove people from the register and prevent them from practising.

The nine regulators of healthcare professionals are:

• the General Medical Council (GMC), which regulates doctors;
• the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), which regulates nurses, midwives and specialist community public health nurses;
• the Health Professions Council (HPC), which regulates 13 separate health professions;
• the General Dental Council (GDC), which regulates dentists, dental hygienists and dental therapists;
• the General Optical Council (GOC), which regulates dispensing opticians and optometrists;
• the General Chiropractic Council (GCC), which regulates chiropractors;
• the General Osteopathic Council (GOsC), which regulates osteopaths;
• the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB), which regulates pharmacists in Great Britain;
• the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI), which regulates pharmacists in Northern Ireland.

•3.       Each year the CHRE carries out a performance review which looks at how each regulator carries out its functions and their general performance against agreed standards. The CHRE's Performance Review of Regulators 2007/08 was published on 30 August 2008 and is available on the CHRE website: http://www.chre.org.uk/news/40/

•4.       Points to note in the review include:

"The public is being protected by the regulators of health professions in the UK. Standards prioritise patient safety and care; the registers are maintained and made public... fitness to practice processes are well managed... All the regulators, with the exception of the NMC, have effective leadership and regulation." (Summary of the Performance Review, p2.)

The performance review was also robust in its support for the Society gaining new legislative powers from the Department of Health in Northern Ireland: "The Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence strongly recommends that a new legal framework for the regulation of pharmacy in Northern Ireland is put in place as soon as possible."  (p38)