Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland’s performance deemed “poor” by the PSA

The PSA have published its annual performance review of the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

For this period 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2024 the PSNI has met 11 out of the 18 Standards. Our report explains how we made our decision and highlights key findings and areas for improvement.

During much of this review period, many aspects of the PSNI’s performance have been poor, and this is reflected in our assessment against the Standards. We recognise that the PSNI, as a small regulator, has been significantly impacted by turnover of senior staff. We also recognise the efforts that the PSNI has made since September 2024 to improve its performance, and we hope this will bear fruit in 2024/25. However, we have identified weaknesses in multiple regulatory functions during 2023/24 which have led us to conclude that the PSNI has not met seven of our 18 Standards of Good Regulation this year.

• Standard 1: for the large majority of the review period, the PSNI’s Council papers were not published ahead of the Council meeting and contained minimal information about its operational, corporate, policy and statutory functions.
• Standard 2: we saw the PSNI make little progress on key projects such as publication of a new Corporate Strategy, the review of The Code, guidance for registrants, education reform and improvements to its website.
• Standard 3: from 2023/24 we have introduced a new approach to assessing regulators’ performance on EDI. We had concerns across all four of the outcomes within this Standard and identified many gaps in fundamental areas.
• Standard 4: we continued to encounter problems contacting and obtaining information from the PSNI for the majority of 2024, and this only improved following a letter on this issue from the PSA Chair to the PSNI President in September 2024. In addition, for the large majority of the review period, the PSNI’s public Council papers contained few substantive items in general, and no items on its operational performance.
• Standard 5: we saw examples of inactivity across a number of different areas and workstreams and stakeholders had sought, but not received, updates from the PSNI on a number of key projects, including The Code review.
• Standard 7: the PSNI made little progress against its plans to update its 2016 guidance on internet pharmacy, despite this being a known and growing risk to patient safety.
• Standard 15: the PSNI took too long to deal with fitness to practise cases and the number of open cases, including older cases, has increased.

The PSA said:

“In line with our escalation policy, we have written to the Minister of Health for Northern Ireland and the Chair of the Northern Ireland Assembly Committee for Health to make them aware of our concerns. You can download these letters below. We will be closely monitoring the PSNI’s performance in 2024/25.

“The judgements we make against each Standard incorporate a range of evidence to form an overall picture of performance. Meeting a Standard means that we are satisfied that a regulator is performing well in that area. It does not mean there is no room for improvement. Similarly, finding that a regulator has met all of the Standards does not mean perfection. Rather, it signifies good performance in the 18 areas we assess.

“Our oversight does not stop when we publish our report. It is an ongoing, continuous process and, where we’ve identified areas for improvement, we pay particular attention to these as we continue to monitor the PSNI’s performance.”

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