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[UPDATED 16:04] Some pharmacist trainees who sat June’s registration assessment were not able to access their results today after what the General Pharmaceutical Council described as “technical issues” on its digital platform.

Following the morning's IT glitches, the GPhC has sinc anounced that a total of 2,913 candidates sat the June registration assessment, with 2,247 candidates achieving a pass, an overall pass rate of 77 per cent.

The regulator has apologised to those affected by problems with the myGPhC portal and said it had emailed candidates to explain why the site was “unavailable for a short period” while it worked to resolve the issue.

In a post published on X, the GPhC said: “We apologise for any delays you may experience in trying to access myGPhC to see your registration assessment results this morning. We are working to resolve the issue and would advise you to try again shortly.”

The hitch caused irritation among candidates. One asked the GPhC on X how long the delay will last and added: “Some of us get scant opportunities to complete our revalidation and this simply isn't good enough.” The GPhC told the student to check again in 30 minutes.

Senior pharmacist Jane Charsley, who works at Bedford Hospital, posted: “Such a shame this has happened after all these trainees' five years of hard work.”

Another student said: “Perhaps if you put the thousands of pounds you get from us trainees into making your system better, we wouldn’t be in this situation!”

Calum Chung posted: “This is completely unacceptable. I cannot think of any mitigating reasons or excuses. This is not the first year of results via myGPhC. GDPR was 2018. Apologies are cheap. You should have known this inevitable demand surge would happen and prepared for it. Sheer incompetence!”

This is not the first time the myGPhC platform has been hit by technicial problems. In October 2023, the General Pharmaceutical Council apologised to registrants after it crashed as they tried to submit their revalidation records.

[UPDATE 16:06]  The regulator said that “the vast majority” of candidates have now been able to access their results.