The British Pharmaceutical Students’ Association (BPSA) has met with the General Pharmaceutical Council to discuss the June 2018 registration assessment, which attracted 266 email complaints from candidates.

The BPSA presented their report on the issue at the meeting, highlighting themes that had emerged such as some questions being worded in a confusing manner, questions favouring pre-registration pharmacists working in a hospital setting over those in community pharmacy, and a failure to ensure that questions reflect the day-to-day practice of newly qualified pharmacists.

The report makes a number of recommendations, including making sure that the Registration Assessment Framework, which candidates use as the basis of their revision, “is not misrepresentative or misleading and provides trainees with sufficient information in order to structure their learning and revision accordingly”.

The BPSA said that after meeting the GPhC, “the president and graduate officer feel confident that the regulator will take the recommendations seriously, and will provide evidence where necessary to demonstrate that they have met the recommendations, or provide a response to demonstrate that they have met the recommendations, or provide a response to recommendations raised in the report.”

That BPSA added that while there was an “overwhelming response” to a change.org petition on the matter, the number of signatures cannot be included on the report due to a lack of raw data specifying how many candidates agreed with each point raised by the petition.

“However, it should be noted that the themes raised in the report published by the BPSA correlate with the themes highlighted by the petition,” the BPSA said.