New Pharmacy Technician Training Programmes

Buttercups Training is delighted to announce the launch of our updated level 3 pre-registration pharmacy technician training programmes.

Following our successful GPhC reaccreditation in July 2022, we have implemented the approved changes to our current pre-registration pharmacy technician training programmes – the Pharmacy Technician (Integrated) and Pharmacy Technician Training Programme.

What does the new programme look like?

The programme has been designed so that it can be used for both apprenticeship and non-apprenticeship delivery.

1. Pharmacy Technician Training Programme (Apprenticeship Pathway)
2. Pharmacy Technician Training Programme (Non-Apprenticeship Pathway)

The Pharmacy Technician Training Programme (Apprenticeship Pathway) is the updated version of the Pharmacy Technician (Integrated) Apprenticeship Programme.

The Pharmacy Technician Training Programme (Non-Apprenticeship Pathway) is the updated version of the Pharmacy Technician Training Programme.

What are the changes?

Our stakeholder feedback and engagement over the past three years has shown us that learners have fed back positively about course content, the b-Hive online learning platform, and the relevance the curriculum has to their workplace practice and professional development. A major focus of the ongoing development of our pre-registration pharmacy technician training programmes has been to strengthen the user experience and remove duplication, to this end, we have made the following changes:

• Some assessments have been changed to formative e-learning activities and some have been revamped to become more holistic assessments
• OSCEs (Objective Structured Clinical Examinations) will continue to be a key assessment method, but we have reduced the number of OSCEs to five, so learners can focus on higher-quality submissions
• The number of patient case studies has been reduced to encourage higher-quality submissions that are succinct
• Progress reviews with the Buttercups tutor for the apprenticeship pathway will take place after the first period and after every two periods thereafter. For the non-apprenticeship pathway, reviews will take place every three months
• The Workplace Facilitator (WF) role has been introduced to support the nominated Workplace Training Supervisor (WTS). This allows certain supervisory tasks to be carried out by the WF (pharmacist or pharmacy technician) and much like the WTS course, they will receive training to understand their role and responsibilities

Further information on the new programmes can be accessed via the following links:
Pharmacy Technician Training Programme (Apprenticeship Pathway)
Pharmacy Technician Training Programme (Non-Apprenticeship Pathway)