Ethics and Ethical Standards for Pharmacists

Pharmacy professionals make ethical decisions many times a day, often at the counter and under time pressure. This pharmacy ethics course works through those decisions using the General Pharmaceutical Council's Standards for pharmacy professionals and its supporting guidance: when to refuse a sale, how to protect privacy in a busy shop, what to do when your personal beliefs affect a service, how to be open about a dispensing error, and how to stop commercial targets or an online business model overriding your professional judgement.

It is a self-paced course of about two hours with pharmacy case studies, reflection points, a 15-question scenario quiz and a written reflective account. You receive a certificate of completion from Healthcare Practise UK when you pass.

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

• Pharmacists in community, hospital, GP practice, primary care network, online and industry roles
• Pharmacy technicians, including those in dispensaries and aseptic units
• Pharmacist independent prescribers
• Locums who sign in as responsible pharmacist in unfamiliar pharmacies
• Registrants responding to a complaint, an employer investigation or a GPhC concern

The course is written for GPhC registrants in Great Britain. Pharmacists in Northern Ireland are regulated by the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland, and the course notes that difference.

1. An overview of healthcare ethics in pharmacy

Why ethics is part of routine decisions and not only rare dilemmas, the GPhC's role in regulating pharmacy professionals and premises, the nine standards, annual revalidation, and the legal framework, including why the legal minimum is not the whole of professional judgement.

2. Core ethical principles

Respecting the informed choices of patients with capacity and offering private consultations, clinical checks and appropriate refusals as acts of beneficence, fair treatment and reasonable adjustments, confidentiality in a public-facing setting, and how to manage personal values and beliefs without blocking timely access to care.

3. Professional integrity and honesty

Honesty in claims, records, revalidation and responsible pharmacist records; the duty of candour (tell, apologise, remedy, explain) and the legal defences that exist to encourage openness about inadvertent dispensing errors; accurate controlled drugs records; and commercial pressures, targets and online pharmacy models.

4. Patient-centred care and shared decision-making

Valid consent for pharmacy services, tailoring counselling (for example when a patient starting warfarin is overwhelmed by a leaflet), handling difficult conversations, and ethics in pharmacist prescribing, including working within competence and separating prescribing from supply.

5. Professional boundaries and conduct

Long-standing customer relationships that drift, chaperones and dignity in consultation rooms, the prohibition on sexual or improper emotional relationships with patients, and professional behaviour online and outside work.

6. Breaches of expected ethical standards

Common serious concerns (dishonesty, unsafe supply, controlled drugs), what the Investigating Committee and Fitness to Practise Committee can do, and how to remediate with targeted learning and evidence it through revalidation.

The GPhC sets nine standards that every pharmacy professional must meet, whatever their role. The table shows where the course addresses each one. Check the current standards and guidance on the GPhC website, which take precedence over any course.

The course also refers to the Responsible Pharmacist Regulations, consent and capacity law and controlled drugs legislation where they shape ethical choices.

• About 2 CPD hours of self-directed learning, including the reflection and assessment, as stated in the course.
• 15 scenario-based multiple-choice questions with a pass mark of 12 out of 15 (80%). Questions include an emergency contraception request to a pharmacist with a conscientious objection, a locum asked to sign in as responsible pharmacist before arriving, and how to correct a controlled drugs register.
• A reflective account with three prompts, including describing an ethical situation from your own practice and how you would now handle it. Answers are stored on your device only.
• A certificate of completion issued by Healthcare Practise UK.

GPhC revalidation is annual. Each year you submit four CPD records, one peer discussion record and one reflective account. The GPhC chooses the standards the reflective account should address; for 2025 these were standard 1 (person-centred care), standard 2 (working in partnership with others) and standard 5 (using professional judgement). This course can support a CPD record, and your end-of-course reflection can help you draft a reflective account, but the account must describe your own practice. Check the GPhC's revalidation pages for the current year's standards before you submit.

A course alone does not show that a concern has been addressed. The GPhC's decision makers look at insight, at whether the behaviour has been remedied, and at the risk of it happening again. The course's own example of strong remediation after a controlled drugs concern is targeted learning, changed procedures, audit and reflection, evidenced over time, not a certificate on its own.

• Write a reflective statement in your own words using our reflective statement builder.
• Add the Insight course if the panel is likely to focus on whether you understand the impact, and the Reflective Practice course for structured reflective writing.
• For conduct, honesty or trust concerns, read our conduct and trust remediation pathway.

Get advice early from your professional body, union or indemnity provider, or a solicitor. Healthcare Practise UK is independent, is not affiliated with or endorsed by the GPhC, and cannot predict any outcome. If a health issue lies behind a concern, confidential support services for pharmacy professionals exist and are worth contacting.

Ethics focuses on the decision in front of you. The GPhC standards for pharmacy professionals course looks at professionalism across the role: responsible and superintendent pharmacist duties, pharmacy inspections, delegation, speaking up and leadership. If a concern has been raised, the Conduct and Trust Pack adds trust, professionalism, complaint-handling, insight, reflection and remediation learning.

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