The General Pharmaceutical Council’s temporary register of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians will close on September 30, it has today been announced.

The temporary register has allowed 6,000 pharmacy professionals who had removed themselves from the permanent roster for non-fitness-to-practice reasons to work again during the Covid pandemic.

The Government will close the temporary registers of all healthcare professions on that date, with the UK appearing to be over the worst of the pandemic.

The register, much like the register for provisionally-registered pharmacists which closed in January, helped take some of the strain off community pharmacy teams amid soaring patient demand and increased remote working by GPs. 

The GPhC has invited pharmacists and pharmacy technicians on the temporary register who want to continue practising after the September deadline passes to re-apply to join the permanent register.

“I would like to thank all those pharmacy professionals on our temporary register who have returned to work to help care for patients and the public during the pandemic,” said GPhC chief executive Duncan Rudkin.