From the Registrar's Desk

For enquiries, please contact PCN Hotline: 08066055429

Our vision is to create an enabling and adequately regulated environment for the provision of quality Pharmaceutical Services for sustainable health care delivery. Our Mission is to effectively regulate and control the training and practice of Pharmaceutical Service providers through the instrumentality of capacity building.

Pharmacists Council of Nigeria

My dear Professional Colleagues, Stakeholders and Members of the Public,

You are welcome to the website of the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN). Act 91 of 1992 establishing the PCN is very clear as per our mandate which is the REGULATION and CONTROL of the practice of Pharmacy in all its aspects and ramifications. The Act establishing the PCN provided for a GOVERNING COUNCIL, under the chairmanship of a part-time chairman appointed by the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to provide policy direction for the PCN in line with its mandate as enshrined in the Act.

The Governing Council of the PCN has a statutory membership which include a Chairman, the Head of Food and Drugs Services Department of the Federal Ministry of Health, the President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) and eight other members of the PSN, the Directors of Pharmaceutical Services in each State Ministry of Health and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Deans of recognized Faculties of Pharmacy of Universities, the DG/CEO of the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD) and the Director of Pharmaceutical Services of the Nigerian Armed Forces.

The Registry of the PCN performs the following functions, among others:

(i) The statutory responsibilities of the Registrar as enshrined in Act 91 of 1992 usually carried out through the utilization of staff of the Council;

(ii) Implement the decisions/regulations made by the Governing Council;

In 2003, there was a Head Office/Registry at Abuja and three (03) other offices as mini Registries at Lagos, Enugu and Kano. Presently, the PCN has State Offices in thirty five (35) States of the Federation except in Lagos and Abuja that both, along with one in each of the geopolitical regions of North-Central, North-East, North-West, South-East, South-South and South-West complete the eight (08) zonal offices as organizational structures of the Council for the implementation of the responsibilities of the Council. Similarly, the seven (07) departments of Inspection and Monitoring (I & M), Pharmacy Practice (PP), Registration and Licensing (R & L), Education and Training (E & T), Planning, Research and Statistics (PRS), Accounts and Administration at the Head Office provide the departmentalized classification of our total responsibilities. The management structure comprising of the eight (08) Zonal heads and the seven (07) departmental heads known as Departmental and Zonal Officers Consultative Committee (DAZOCC) under the chairmanship of the Registrar meet from time to time to drive the PCN towards achieving the set goals and objectives of the Council which is implementation of activities towards ensuring regulation and control of the practice of pharmacy in Nigeria.

As standard setters for the practice and benchmark drafters for Minimum Academic Standards for those wishing to study pharmacy in Nigerian Universities or Pharmacy Technician programme in Colleges and Schools for Health Technology across the nation, various regulations and control measures were approved to ensure the official endorsement of these paramount classifications of Council’s responsibilities. The responsibilities of Registration, Inspection, Approving and Licensing of all premises where pharmaceutical activities take place in Nigeria as in Retail Pharmacies, Wholesale/Importation firms for Pharmaceuticals, Hospital Pharmacies within public or private Health Institutions and Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Industries are the responsibilities of the PCN. The Council utilizes the Pharmaceutical Inspection Committees (PICs), which are Committees at the State level and in the FCT under the Chairmanship of the DPSs, to actualize the inspection and/or re-inspection of retail and wholesale/importation outfits towards ensuring compliance with standards and/or for recommendations to the Registrar for licensing as the case may be. Inspections for compliance to standards or for fresh licensing of hospital pharmacies and pharmaceutical manufacturing industries are carried out by trained Registry pharmaceutical staff from the PP and I & M departments respectively. To fully actualize and exploit the potentials of the inspection activities by the PICs and/or Registry staff, the PCN had prepared, edited and printed it sets of standards below which none of the above licensed premises should fall. Indeed, the “Four-Part Compendium of Minimum Standards for the Assurance of Pharmaceutical Care in Nigeria” is the Council’s flagship of all its publications that guides its practitioners towards ensuring appropriate and standard outlets for the provision of pharmaceutical care from the four defined areas of practice as the case may be.

The Council is also the regulatory body mandated to register, inspect, approve and license Patent and Proprietary Medicines Vendors shops all over the country. Again, this is achieved through the Patent and Proprietary Medicine Vendors Licence (PPMVL) Committees that are Committees of the Council under the chairmanship of the DPS’s in each State of the Federation and the FCT.

The Council had prepared the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) for the present Bachelor of Pharmacy (B. Pharm) programmes being run in the approved Faculties of Pharmacy in Nigeria. The BMAS for the Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm. D) Programme has similarly been prepared and sent to the National Universities Commission (NUC) which has also approved the programme. The Council periodically approves visitation panels to undertake accreditation of its approved pharmacy programmes in the Universities to ensure that the correct and approved instructions as contained in the BMAS are being maintained and imparted to the students undertaking such programmes. The accreditation of the Pharmacy Technician programme of the Schools or Colleges of Health Technology in Nigeria, designed to provide the professional sub-cadre group for pharmacy, is also the responsibility of the Council. The topics for the programme are drafted by the Council just as they are reviewed from time to time to meet with societal challenges and needs at that level. Accreditation panels are constituted to ensure compliance with the programmes by these colleges and schools. In order to maintain professional competence and fitness to practice among the professionals in Nigeria, Council had put in place since 1998 an articulate Continuous Professional Development (CPD) programme to be accessed by all registered pharmacists in Nigeria. All the present thirteen (13) Faculties of Pharmacy with approved Pharmacy Programme, the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacists in Yaba, Lagos and the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD), Abuja are PCN approved provider centres for the Mandatory Continuing Professional Development (MCPD) programmes of the PCN. Besides ensuring that pharmacists are well grounded and kept abreast with the latest scientific and practice development of the profession utilizing resource persons from the academia and/or the four areas of practice, the participation in the programme by eligible pharmacists is also mandatory for the renewal of their licenses. The programme is fashioned along a modular system of thirty (30) credit units to be attained by practitioners within a cycle of three (03) years at a module each per year, the programme is presently at Module VIII of the third cycle. Indeed, Pharmacists could pick up credits making up to ten (10) credit units from advocacy programmes recognized by the Council which is of relevant professional nature or attendance of conferences organized by the PCN or its Technical groups, International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), Commonwealth Pharmaceutical Association (CPA) or Scientific Conferences and Symposium of the WAPCP, etc.

The monitoring of the observance of the Pharmacists Code of Ethics ensures that registered pharmacists practice ethically and conduct themselves in a professional manner at all times. Besides, Act 91 of 1992 establishing the PCN has made provision of an Investigating Panel and Disciplinary Tribunal to ensure corrections for those registered pharmacists who may practice or conduct themselves in an unethical manner.

In an attempt to quickly respond to the demand(s) of Pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians or stakeholders in the profession generally, a hotline has been established at the PCN Head Office/Registry, Idu, Abuja for that purpose. The mobile telephone number is 0806-605-5429 and is operated daily from 9.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. from Mondays to Fridays each week except public holidays.

Finally, there is need to emphasize that the focus of the PCN now and always is the regulation and control of Pharmacy education and practice in Nigeria. This function essentially involves standardization and upgrading of the teaching of pharmaceutical sciences at all levels in order to ensure that only fit persons would be presented to the public as practitioners. In all this, however, the PCN intends to continuously focus primarily on practice as its main area of emphasis to enable the public have access to a packaged facility that has been certified by the PCN as capable of providing effective, affordable, safe and qualitative pharmaceutical care.

Thank you very much and welcome to the agency of regulation of pharmacy education and practice in Nigeria and the website of the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN).