When you buy a pharmacy, most of the attention goes on the NHS side. The contract, the fitness to practise checks, the notice of commencement. The General Pharmaceutical Council side gets less airtime, and it’s the one that can shut your doors on day one if you get it wrong.
This guide covers what the GPhC needs from a new owner and where buyers tend to slip up. It’s written for pharmacies in England, Scotland and Wales, since the GPhC regulates premises across Great Britain.
Why the GPhC needs to know about a new owner
Every pharmacy that sells or supplies medicines has to be on the GPhC register of pharmacy premises. That registration is linked to the person or company that owns and runs the business. So when the owner changes, the register has to change with it.
This sits apart from your NHS change of ownership application. NHS England (or the relevant body in Scotland and Wales) deals with the pharmacy contract. The GPhC deals with whether the premises can legally operate as a pharmacy at all. You need both, and getting approval from one doesn’t sort out the other.
There’s a practical reason too. Wholesalers and suppliers look at the GPhC register before they’ll open or transfer accounts to a new owner. Until your details are on there, ordering stock can get awkward.
If you haven’t been through the NHS side yet, our guide to change of ownership and FTP applications explains how that part works.
The 28 day rule
The new owner has to notify the GPhC within 28 days of the ownership change. The GPhC is clear that you should send the notification once the change has actually happened, not before.
The date that counts is the transfer date. The GPhC describes this as the date you, or your company, become legally responsible for owning and operating the pharmacy. In most sales that’s completion day. If the date moves after you’ve told the GPhC, you need to tell them in writing so the register is right.
There’s one exception. If the change happened because a sole trader or partner died, the period is three months from the date of death rather than 28 days.
What happens if you miss it
This is the part buyers underestimate. If the GPhC doesn’t receive a fully completed notification within 28 days, the premises are removed from the register. A pharmacy that isn’t registered can’t legally operate, so it has to close.
To reopen, you’d need to apply for restoration and pay the restoration fee.
“Fully completed” matters here. Local guidance points out that the form needs signing by both the outgoing and incoming owner, and the fee has to be paid, before the GPhC can process it. A form sent on day 27 with a missing signature doesn’t stop the clock.
The notification form
The form is called the notification of change of ownership of a registered pharmacy, and it’s on the GPhC website as a Word document. Along with the basic ownership details, it asks the new owner to show how the pharmacy will meet the GPhC standards for registered pharmacies from the day the new owner takes over.
That assessment is worth taking seriously. The standards cover governance, staffing, premises, how services are managed and how equipment and facilities are kept. If you’re buying a pharmacy that has had a weak inspection history, this is where you’d set out what’s changing. Our buyer’s guide to purchasing a pharmacy covers the due diligence that should feed into it.
A few other points from the GPhC’s guidance.
If you plan to offer services online, you also have to show how you’ll meet the GPhC guidance on distance selling and internet pharmacy services.
If you’re taking on more than 10 pharmacies at once, the GPhC asks you to email its premises team before you apply.
If the buyer is a company or other corporate body that doesn’t already own registered premises, it has to nominate a superintendent pharmacist as part of the process.
Superintendent pharmacists
The superintendent point catches out a lot of first time buyers who set up a new limited company for the purchase. A company can own a pharmacy, but it has to have a superintendent pharmacist registered with the GPhC who’s responsible for the professional side of the business.
If your company already owns a registered pharmacy, it will already have a superintendent, who covers the new pharmacy too. If it’s a fresh company, you’ll need to nominate one. That could be you, if you’re a pharmacist, or someone you appoint. Either way, have this agreed well before completion rather than scrambling for a name in the last week.
If the superintendent changes later, the GPhC needs telling then too. NHS England also needs to know about changes to directors and the superintendent, with fitness information for each.
Does every sale count as a change of ownership?
Not always, and the structure of the deal makes a big difference.
In an asset purchase, you’re buying the business and its assets from the current owner. The legal entity running the pharmacy changes, so it’s a change of ownership for both the GPhC and the NHS.
In a share purchase, you buy the company that already owns the pharmacy. The company stays the same, so in most cases there’s no change of ownership. What does change is who sits behind the company, so you’ll usually be notifying director and superintendent changes instead.
Moving a pharmacy you already own as a sole trader into your own limited company also counts as a change of ownership, even though nothing seems different day to day. Community Pharmacy England notes that pharmacists generally know to tell the GPhC in this situation, but the NHS application often gets missed.
If you’re still weighing up how to structure a purchase, our post on asset purchase vs share purchase goes through the trade offs.
How it fits with the NHS timeline
The two processes run on different clocks. The NHS change of ownership has to be approved before the sale completes, and with fitness to practise involved that can take a couple of months. The GPhC notification happens after completion, within 28 days.
A sensible order looks something like this. Get the NHS approval in place, agree the completion date with the seller, have the GPhC form ready and signed by both parties on the day, then submit as soon as the sale completes. Leaving the GPhC form until after the dust settles is how pharmacies end up off the register.
It also helps to line up the other changes that hang off completion, such as wholesaler accounts, ODS codes and NHSmail. Those are covered in our posts on pharmacy ODS codes and on the SOPs new owners need in place.
Getting help with the paperwork
Most problems with GPhC registration after a sale come down to timing and incomplete forms rather than anything complicated. But the cost of getting it wrong is a closed pharmacy, so it pays to have someone check the details.
Healthcare Plus handles change of ownership and FTP applications for pharmacy buyers, including the GPhC side, so the NHS and GPhC steps line up with your completion date. If you’re still looking for the right business, have a look at our pharmacies for sale or get in touch to talk it through.
