Pharmacy Act 2007

Qualifications for practice.

16.— (1) A person holds a qualification appropriate for practice if he or she has received in the State the prescribed training and education and has the prescribed qualifications.

(2) A person applying for registration in the pharmacists’ register who does not hold a qualification appropriate for practice as a pharmacist by virtue of subsection (1) shall be regarded as having a qualification appropriate for practice if—

(a) he or she is a national of a relevant state and satisfies the Council as to one of the requirements set out in subsections(3) to (5), or

(b) he or she has, in a third country received such training and education, passed such examinations and obtained such qualifications as are, in the opinion of the Council, of a standard not lower than the standard of those necessary for practice in the State.

(3) The first of the requirements referred to in subsection (2)(a) is that the person holds a diploma, certificate or other evidence of formal qualification in pharmacy awarded after training in accordance with Article 44 of the Professional Qualifications Directive and referred to in Annex V, point 5.6.2 to that Directive.

(4) The second of those requirements is that the person holds evidence of the formal qualifications as a pharmacist referred to in Article 23 of the Professional Qualifications Directive and is a person in respect of whom a certificate has been issued by a competent authority stating that he or she has been effectively and lawfully engaged in the activities of a pharmacist for at least 3 consecutive years during the 5 years before the issue of the certificate.

(5) The third of those requirements is that the person—

(a) holds a diploma, certificate or other evidence of formal qualification as a pharmacist granted by a competent authority of a third country, and the diploma, certificate or other evidence has been recognised by a relevant state for the purpose of being a pharmacist in that state, and

(b) has experience, of at least three years, of practising as a pharmacist in that state certified in accordance with Article 3.3 of the Professional Qualifications Directive.

(6) The Council may—

(a) so as to inform itself for the purposes of subsection (2)(b) about the standard of training, education, examinations and qualifications in another state, require a person to whom that provision appears to apply to sit an examination,

(b) in any case in which it is in any doubt about a matter referred to in that provision, require a person to whom that provision appears to apply to undergo such training as it may specify.

(7) Schedule 2 makes further provision as to the recognition of professional qualifications in pharmacy.

(8) In this section—

“competent authority” means, in relation to a relevant state, the authority designated in accordance with Article 56.3 of the Professional Qualifications Directive;

“Professional Qualifications Directive” means Directive 2005/36/EC of 7 September 2005 on the recognition of professional qualifications as amended by Council Directive 2006/100/EC of 20 November 2006 adapting certain Directives in the field of freedom of movement of persons by reason of the accession of Bulgaria and Romania;

“relevant state” means—

(a) a Member State (other than the State),

(b) a state that is a contracting state to the EEA Agreement within the meaning given by the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993 (other than a Member State or the State),

(c) the Swiss Confederation;

“third country” means a country that is not a relevant state or the State.

(9) An expression used in this section and also in the Professional Qualifications Directive has the same meaning in this section as it has in that Directive.