The General Pharmaceutical Council’s temporary register of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians which was launched over the pandemic will close on 30 September, it has been announced.

The register allowed for over 6,000 former pharmacists to be granted temporary registration to enable them to return to work to assist pharmacies amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

In total 3,332 former pharmacists and 2,909 former pharmacy technicians from across the UK joined the temporary registration to help support the sector.

The Government will close the temporary register of all healthcare professions at the end of September.

This follows the closure of the provisionally registered pharmacists register in January, which also helped take some of the pressure of community pharmacy teams while the workload was high during the pandemic.

The provisional register enabled people who had completed their training to help while they waited to sit registration assessment.

Duncan Rudkin, chief executive of the GPhC said: ‘I would like to thank all those pharmacy professionals on our temporary register who have returned to work to help care for patients and the public during the pandemic.’

He said pharmacists on the register can ‘continue to practise for the next six months while the temporary register remains open’. They can also apply to join the main register if they want to continue practising after 30 September.