In March 2017 the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) announced that its Board of Assessors will be changing the way in which it marks its registration examinations in that candidates will no longer be able to have their papers re-marked and a multi stage checking process will be put into place instead.

Previously pre-registration pharmacists could choose to pay £110 in order to enable their registration assessments to be re-marked.

The GPhC states that despite this option, no final results had ever been changed as a result of the re-marking system.

These changes however, will not affect the pre-registration pharmacist’s right to appeal their registration assessment result. Appeals, in reality, however, can only be brought on two grounds:

• 1.procedural grounds; and/or
• 2.if the performance of the preregistration pharmacist was affected because of exceptional circumstances, of which the preregistration pharmacist was unaware before or during the registration assessment.

The new marking system

The Board of Assessor’s new marking system has five stages starting with an electronic marking system.

At this stage if any of the answers are unclear then four stages of manual checking are carried out.

The GPhC have said that “there will be five opportunities to make sure that the answers have been interpreted correctly,” it said.

With this new form of marking the GPhC has stated that preregistration pharmacists should ensure that they write their answers to the multiple choice questions or those questions requiring a numerical answer “as clearly as possible” in order to negate the need for the marking of the registration assessment by hand.

So how will the electronic marking of the registration assessment be verified? The GPhC states that a random sample of registration assessments completed by preregistration pharmacists will be taken and reviewed to ensure that the electronic marking is accurate.

The new marking regime has been seen as a positive move for preregistration pharmacists as it is said that it will ensure “increased quality assurance and rigour” which will reassure preregistration pharmacists that their final marks are accurate and will mean that remarking is now a thing of the past.

If you are a preregistration pharmacist seeking assistance in relation to your GPhC registration assessment or if you have failed your registration assessment and need legal advice on appealing your result, please contact us on 0161 827 9500. We can help!