Headache for pharmacy students as key exam hit by IT glitch

The assessment is a key exam for trainee pharmacists

Officials have apologised after computer problems led to severe delays for trainee pharmacists sitting a key exam.

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) said five of its 113 test centres had issues with the June registration assessment on Wednesday.

The most significant problems were at the Nottingham test centre where some exams were delayed by several hours.

The GPhC said it had emailed affected students to apologise.

Passing the registration assessment is an important step in becoming eligible to apply to become a registered pharmacist.

The GPhC said the majority of the 2,700 candidates taking the exam on Wednesday were able to complete it with no issues.

But one Nottingham student said on Twitter they had been left waiting more than eight hours to start their assessment.

'Completely unacceptable'

The organisation and BTL Group, which runs the test centres, apologised for the disruption.

The GPhC did not name the other centres where problems occurred but said Nottingham was the only location that experienced major delays.

Chief executive Duncan Rudkin said: "We are extremely sorry for the severe delays experienced by candidates in Nottingham today.

"This is completely unacceptable, and we fully appreciate the significant stress and disruption this must have caused for them in such a high-stakes assessment.

"We are advising the candidates in Nottingham that we will accept the severe delay as grounds for appeal if they do not pass.

"This means that if they do not pass the assessment, this sitting would not count as one of their attempts to pass. We are considering what else we can do to support the affected candidates.

"The GPhC and BTL will also work together as a priority to review what caused these delays and make sure lessons are learned to help avoid these issues happening again in the future."

Professor Claire Anderson, president of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said: "This was an appalling experience, especially for those affected by significant technical issues in Nottingham.

"It is not acceptable that foundation trainees were subjected to such traumatic and chaotic circumstances on what was already a stressful day."