The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) announced on Thursday (April 30) that the overall pass rate for the 2021 registration assessment was 88.2 per cent.
The registration assessment had been postponed from June 2020 because of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The pharmacy regulator said that a total of 2,666 candidates sat the exam over two days – on March 17 and 18 of whom 218 candidates who did not pass will no longer be able to work as pharmacists until they pass the assessment. They will need continued support their employers as well as from associations like the Royal Pharmaceutical Society who have pledged support.
Those who passed the assessment were understandably ecstatic.
Pharmacy Business caught up two to share with our readers their experience of sitting an online assessment, but it was a mixed bag.
Whereas, another community pharmacist who cleared the test, Prabhjot Singh Bhurjee, who works in a Boots UK branch had a positive experience overall and thought that there was a possibility that the next cohort of provisional registrants too would have to “experience a similar kind of setting when it comes to the GPhC exams.”
He said: “After four years of studying at the University and a delayed pre-registration year due to the Covid pandemic, I was happy to appear for the test and achieve a 98 per cent and 94 per cent in both papers 1 and 2 of the postponed assessment.”
Prabhjot said one needs only 60 and 70 to pass in those papers respectively.
He added: “After working as a provisional pharmacist (the first cohort in the history of pharmacy) during a worldwide pandemic, finally registering allows us all to put these skills we have learned through studies or through experience into practice without the stress of having to sit the exam to maintain our jobs.”
