Part A & Part B Register for Pharmacists

The College maintains a two-part register for practicing pharmacists

  • Part A pharmacists – practicing pharmacists who provide patient care
  • Part B pharmacists – practicing pharmacists who do not provide patient care

The choice of whether to elect into Part A or B of the Register is an individual decision based on one’s practice, and is a self-declaration on the part of the registrant. Should a registrant have any questions regarding Part A and Part B of the Register, they can contact QA@ocpinfo.com.

Patient Care Activities

There are a number of activities which the College considers as patient care activities. These include activities with individual patients as well as with patient populations which can be distilled to the level of providing individual patient care.

With this in mind, patient care involves any of the following:

  • Providing pharmacy services to individual patients or their advocate. In addition to the traditional community and hospital pharmacist’s patient-facing activities, this may include:
    • Medication incident/ADR reporting where an assessment is undertaken for individual patients
    • Individual patient assessment of sentinel events
  • Compounding, dispensing, prescribing and having custody of drugs
  • Providing health care aids and devices to assist individual patients or their advocate
  • Providing information and education related to the use of drugs, health care aids or devices to individual patients or their advocate considered within that patient’s circle of care
  • Promoting health, prevention and treatment of disease, disorders and dysfunctions through monitoring and management of medication therapy for individual patients
Part A Pharmacists (provide patient care)

Part A pharmacists must:

Part B Pharmacists (do not provide patient care)

While Part B pharmacists do not provide patient care as defined by the College, they are practising pharmacists and are therefore required to uphold the ethical and practice standards of the profession.

Part B pharmacists must maintain a Learning Portfolio. They are not required to have liability insurance.

Pharmacists who provide information related to drug use in their usual workday but do not provide patient care while practising the profession would be expected to elect into Part B of the Register. Examples include, but are not limited to, pharmacists currently working in administration, academia, healthcare institutions, government, the pharmaceutical industry and consulting firms. However, these pharmacists who wish to remain in Part A of the Register could do so provided they fulfill the practice requirement of 600 hours of patient care while practising the profession over a three-year period and undergo a Practice Assessment and Knowledge Assessment when selected by the College to do so.

Moving Between the Two Parts of the Register

Pharmacists can move between the two parts of the Public Register if they meet the requirements below.

Note: If you are a Part A pharmacist and wondering if you should move to Part B or resign your registration, please see Maintaining Your Registration FAQs.

Moving from Part A to Part B

A Part A pharmacist may move to Part B of the Register at any time. The registrant must notify the College by emailing registrantservices@ocpinfo.com of their intention to do so. The change would take place immediately or on the effective date provided by the registrant.

Note: If you are interested in resigning, please see the Resigning & Reinstating webpage.

Moving from Part B to Part A

A Part B pharmacist who wishes to move to Part A of the Register must notify the College of their intention by emailing QA@ocpinfo.com, and then successfully complete the following requirements:

AND

  • Practice assessment (three options below)
  1. Practice assessment by a College practice advisor at practice site of your choice;
  2. Practice Assessment of Competence at Entry (PACE) at assessor’s practice site, or
  3. Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada’s (PEBC) Objective Structured Clinical Exam for Pharmacists (OSCE)

Pharmacists may select the option of their choice, based on their own readiness for practice and the timing, frequency and availability of the required assessments.

For more information, please see the Process for Moving from Part B to Part A.

College Contact: QA@ocpinfo.com