Does the GPhC have enough power to regulate online pharmacies and large corporates? – Executives at the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) have recognised and suggested that the GPhC would need more regulatory powers to manage online pharmacies and larger corporate pharmacy companies.
A report published last month highlighted that issues the regulators face when trying to regulate and hold accountable large corporations – mainly because of the financial standing they have. These large multiples for example, deliver a huge portion of the healthcare and patient care to the public – any ‘extreme’ steps taken by the regulators could lead to patients being unable to access these healthcare care services. There becomes a fine balance of regulating and allowing services to be accessible to all.
The GPhC does hold a reasonable amount of power when regulating however when compared to other regulators such as the General Optical Council, they cannot issue fines for breach of contracts for example.
Perhaps there needs to be some legislation changes to empower the GPhC and give them more control over online pharmacies which are increasing rapidly as suggested by the PSA chief executive.
The PSA report has made recommendations to for the regulatory powers to be reviewed and to look at the current regulations, if are enough to protect the public and hold large corporations to account. It has also suggested the UK government gives more powers over the registrants who work in high street practices.
GPhC hasn’t made a full comment but its important to highlight they have done a huge amount of work regulating online pharmacies with recently updated guidance published around pharmacy services at a distance. They also advised that they are working closely with other regulators such as the Care Quality Commission, the General Medical Council and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in order to regulate how products and services are provided online, how they are advertised and how the websites are laid out. Changes are happening and things are tightening up in terms of expectations from the regulators when it comes to pharmacy. I think it’s a good thing that all regulators are working together to improve the standards across the healthcare sector. However, I am not convinced that the GPhC will fully extend its powers to regulate large corporates as tightly as it does smaller individual businesses. Time will tell.