I’ve written twice now about what revalidation requires of you, most recently just before your renewal date, and before that when the GPhC first set out the changes, so I want to come back to it from a different angle this week, because the GPhC has just published its own survey of how pharmacy professionals actually feel about the process.
The survey went to pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in May and June, the first perception survey of this kind since 2018, and had 5,368 responses, so it’s a decent sample (around 5.6% of the register). The number that stood out to me is that only 44% of respondents said revalidation supports their professional development and builds their confidence in practice, though a good chunk of that gap is neutral responses rather than active disagreement.
That’s not a rejection of the idea of ongoing development, because the same survey found 97% of respondents feel familiar with the professional standards for their role and 94% feel confident using their professional judgement in difficult situations, so the underlying competence and awareness is clearly there. What isn’t landing is the specific exercise of recording CPD entries and reflective accounts once a year and having it feel like it’s actually building anything.
There’s a second finding that I think explains some of the first. Only 28% of respondents felt the GPhC listens to pharmacists and pharmacy technicians when it develops policies, standards and guidance, against 30% who felt it doesn’t, and the rest sitting on the fence. I’d guess that’s connected to how revalidation gets experienced day to day, because if the process feels like something handed down rather than something shaped by what the profession actually finds useful, it’s going to feel like paperwork rather than development whatever the content asks for. I’m sure this is the same across other regulators too.
From the mock inspections and governance support I do, I see this gap played out at individual level too. Most of the pharmacists and technicians I come across can produce a revalidation record without much trouble, because by now the mechanics are familiar, but when I ask what a particular CPD entry actually changed about how they practise, the answer is often vaguer than it should be. Independent prescribers are usually the exception, because their CPD tends to come built into their prescribing course or into whatever they’re doing to expand their scope of practice, so it’s tied to something concrete rather than being an exercise on its own.
I don’t think the answer is more process, because 75% of respondents already agree the GPhC’s standards and guidance help deliver safe and effective care, so people broadly trust the framework. I think it’s closer to making the annual record feel like it’s actually in service of something a pharmacy professional chose to improve, rather than a form that happens to be due in the same month every year.
Check out the survey here: https://www.pharmacyregulation.org/about-us/news-and-updates/survey-finds-gphc-standards-support-pharmacists-and-pharmacy-technicians-delivering-safe-and-effective-care
