Professionalism and Professional Standards for Pharmacy Professionals

Professionalism in pharmacy shows in hundreds of daily actions: how you greet a patient, check a prescription under pressure, supervise the team, respond to an error, run the pharmacy as responsible pharmacist and behave online. This GPhC standards for pharmacy professionals course takes the General Pharmaceutical Council's nine standards and shows how they apply in each of those situations, including roles where you rarely meet patients.

It also covers the GPhC's standards for registered pharmacies and inspection programme, because a pharmacy professional's conduct depends partly on the systems around them. The course takes about two hours, with workplace cases, a 15-question quiz, a written reflective account and a certificate of completion from Healthcare Practise UK.

For revalidation requirements and the GPhC fitness to practise process at a glance, see our GPhC regulator page.

• Pharmacists in community, hospital, GP practice and primary care network roles
• Pharmacy technicians, including those in aseptic, procurement and other non-patient-facing work
• Responsible pharmacists, including locums, and superintendent pharmacists
• Pharmacy professionals who supervise or train dispensing assistants and other support staff
• Registrants responding to a GPhC concern about conduct, supervision, controlled drugs or professional behaviour

If your interest is in individual ethical decisions, such as refusing a sale, conscientious objection or online supply, see the pharmacy ethics course.

1. Professionalism for pharmacy professionals

What professionalism means across every role, the GPhC's work (setting standards, inspecting pharmacies, running revalidation and investigating concerns), annual revalidation, and the requirement for every registrant to have appropriate indemnity cover.

2. Core principles

Person-centred care (such as an older woman with arthritis who cannot push tablets through a blister pack), integrity in records, claims and revalidation, accountability, confidentiality, communication, respect, teamwork, reflective practice, and recognising unsafe pressure and looking after your own wellbeing.

3. The GPhC's Standards for pharmacy professionals

An overview of the nine standards; the roles of the responsible pharmacist and the superintendent pharmacist; the standards for registered pharmacies, their five principles and how inspections and published reports work; leadership and safe delegation at every level; and speaking up and raising concerns.

4. Professional boundaries and ethical conduct

Managing long-term customer relationships and dual relationships, sexual boundaries, behaviour online (including paid promotion and declaring interests) and conduct outside work that can affect fitness to practise.

5. Breaches, consequences and remediation

Clinical, behavioural, ethical and regulatory breaches; consequences for patients, professionals, owners and the wider system; the GPhC's range of actions (advice, warnings, conditions, suspension and removal); and remediation that is specific and documented through revalidation.

The GPhC's Standards for pharmacy professionals apply to every pharmacist and pharmacy technician, in every role. Always check the current standards on the GPhC website, which take precedence over any course.

The course also explains the Responsible Pharmacist Regulations, the standards for registered pharmacies and their inspection outcomes, and the protection for workers who make protected disclosures.

• Time: about 2 CPD hours of self-directed learning, including the reflection and assessment, as stated in the course.
• Cases: pharmacy workplace scenarios, including a technician unsure whether the standards apply in an aseptic unit, a pharmacy whose inspection found near misses were not being reviewed, and a missing urgent special-order medicine at the end of a shift.
• Quiz: 15 scenario-based multiple-choice questions with a pass mark of 12 out of 15 (80%).
• Reflection: three prompts, including which of the nine standards you will focus on in your next revalidation and why. Answers are stored on your device only.
• Certificate: a certificate of completion from Healthcare Practise UK.

Each year GPhC registrants submit four CPD records, one peer discussion record and one reflective account. The GPhC sets which standards the reflective account should cover; in 2025 they were standards 1, 2 and 5, and for submissions on or after 1 January 2026 you can reflect against any of the nine, as long as you reflect against one or more. This course can support a CPD record, and the final reflection prompt is designed to help you pick a standard to focus on. Your reflective account must be about your own practice, so use the course as a prompt rather than a template, and check the GPhC's revalidation pages for the current year's requirements.

If a concern has been raised, the course's last module is the place to start. It explains what the GPhC can do and what makes remediation credible. The course's own example after repeated dispensing errors is a combination of targeted learning, changed checking procedures, audit and reflection, recorded through revalidation. A certificate alone would not show that.

• Turn your learning into a reflective statement in your own words with our reflective statement builder.
• Add the Insight course and the Reflective Practice course if insight and reflective writing are likely to be in question.
• For concerns about conduct or trust, our conduct and trust pathway shows how the courses fit together.

Seek advice early from your professional body, union, indemnity provider or a solicitor. Healthcare Practise UK is independent, is not affiliated with or endorsed by the GPhC, and cannot predict any outcome.

Pair this course with the pharmacy ethics course, which looks at individual decisions: repeat requests for medicines that may be misused, conscience and access to care, candour after a dispensing error, and online supply. If a concern has been raised, the Conduct and Trust Pack adds trust, professionalism, complaint-handling, insight, reflection and remediation learning.

Not sure which you need? Try Which course do I need? or browse the course catalogue.