Monitoring Report - Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland 2024/25

This is one of our shorter monitoring reports for the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland and covers the period 1 January to 31 December 2025.

Key statistics

• the PSNI regulates the practice of pharmacists and also registers pharmacies in Northern Ireland 
• 3,040 pharmacists on the register (as at 31 December 2025)
• 536 pharmacy premises on the register (as at 31 December 2025)

Key findings and areas for improvement

Overview

As this report sets out, we have seen an improvement in the PSNI’s performance compared to last year, when we concluded that it met only 11 of our 18 Standards of Good Regulation; this year, the PSNI has met 14 Standards. We welcome this improvement and appreciate the constructive engagement from the PSNI throughout this time. However, many of the areas of improvement relate to work we would expect regulators to be carrying out as a matter of course, and there are still a number of significant issues that are yet to be addressed. The PSNI’s decision not to publish its 2025-30 Corporate Strategy, because of the uncertainty around the future of pharmacy regulation in Northern Ireland, was a factor in our decision that the PSNI had not met Standard 2 again this year. 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 provide them with an update on the PSNI’s performance, which we will continue to closely monitor during 2025/26.

Standard 3 on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

The PSNI has made progress against Standard 3 this year, underpinned by the publication of its EDI Strategy. However, several significant gaps we identified in our last report have not been addressed – notably regarding the PSNI not using data and evidence to identify unfairness in processes and decisions, not using research to inform its work, and not publishing its own EDI data, research and analysis. The PSNI met one out of four outcomes within this Standard; we therefore concluded that the PSNI had not met Standard 3.

Online pharmacy

For several years, we reported on the need for the PSNI to understand and manage the risks arising from online pharmacy, and last year we concluded that the PSNI had not met Standard 7 because of the lack of progress to publish guidance for registrants on this issue. The PSNI launched a consultation exercise on draft guidance regarding prescription delivery and collection in November 2025, but this is narrow in scope and is not an update on the PSNI’s 2016 standards and guidance on internet pharmacy services. We have also seen little progress in terms of the PSNI’s understanding of the risks around online pharmacy during this review period. We therefore concluded that the PSNI had not met Standard 7.

Fitness to Practise

The PSNI has met four out of five of our fitness to practise (FTP) standards this year. We concluded that it had not met Standard 15 because it was still taking too long to deal with FTP cases. While the PSNI had succeeded in reducing the number of open cases overall, the improvement was largely confined to cases at the earliest part of the FTP process, and the number of open older cases remained high compared to previous years.