All members of the public can check whether a pharmacist, pharmacy technician or pharmacy is registered in Great Britain, by looking at the register on our website. You can also see any decisions we have made about whether pharmacy professionals are safe to practise pharmacy, and which pharmacists are also 'supplementary prescribers' or 'independent prescribers'.

To be able to practise in Great Britain, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians must satisfy us that they meet the standards for pharmacy professionals. Only then can they join the register. Similarly, anyone wanting to register a pharmacy or renew that registration must also meet our standards.

When a pharmacist or pharmacy technician renews their registration with us each year, they must make a declaration confirming that they meet all our standards.

Anyone who is not registered with us, but practises as a pharmacist or pharmacy technician, is breaking the law and can be prosecuted. You can search the online register for details of pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and pharmacies.

Since April 2020, we have kept a ‘temporary register’, after the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care asked us to use our emergency powers to register pharmacy professionals quickly to help with the national response to the COVID-19 emergency.

As of 31 March 2022, 3,378 pharmacists and 2,933 pharmacy technicians were temporarily registered with us.

In May 2020, we introduced provisional registration for pharmacist pre-registration trainees. This was because COVID-19 restrictions meant that the registration assessment had to be postponed.

We closed the provisional register on 31 January 2022, as by then there had been several opportunities for provisionally registered pharmacists to sit our registration assessment and join the main register.