Inspections from the General Pharmaceutical Council are a routine part of running a pharmacy in Great Britain. The bar is not perfection — it is evidence that the pharmacy is run safely, transparently, and that the team can explain the decisions they make.
What inspectors typically review
Inspectors look at four broad areas: governance, staff, premises and services. In practice this means a small set of records.
Governance
- Current Responsible Pharmacist record with name, registration number, and the date and time on duty.
- SOPs covering dispensing, controlled drugs, error reporting, refrigeration, expiry checks, services delivery and confidentiality. Each SOP needs a review date within the last 24 months and a sign-off from every team member who works to it.
- A near-miss and dispensing error log, recording date, type, contributing factor, and what changed afterwards.
Controlled drugs
- A bound or electronic CD register with running balances.
- Periodic balance checks (weekly is a defensible cadence) signed by two people.
- A separate destruction record with a witness signature, kept for at least seven years.
Premises
- Fridge logs with twice-daily readings, named person, and an excursion procedure.
- Expiry checks scheduled by section, not relying on memory.
- Cleanliness, ventilation, lockable storage and a private consultation area for services.
Services and patient safety
- Service-specific SOPs (NMS, hypertension case-finding, contraception, Pharmacy First) with up-to-date PGDs and competency records.
- A patient safety incident log linked to the practice's reporting route.
- Confidentiality undertaking signed by every staff member.
What the team should be ready to talk about
Inspectors will ask people what they would do. A team that can describe their workflow in plain language — "if a CD balance does not match, I do this; if a fridge alarms, I do that" — almost always inspects well, even if a record is messy. The reverse is also true: tidy paperwork without team understanding is a red flag.
How to make this easier
Most failure cases come from SOPs that are out of date, signed by people who left two years ago, or that nobody on shift has read. A scheduled quarterly review and an electronic record of who has signed what removes most of the risk.
