The Pharmacy Board of Australia (PharmBA) requires intern pharmacists to complete an accredited intern training program (ITP). This also applies to some pharmacists who qualified outside of Australia.
PharmBA has authorised us to accredit ITPs.
Time frame:
Costs:
On this page:
We accredit pharmacy ITPs in Australia against a set of clear, agreed accreditation standards.
These standards ensure that ITPs help graduates to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to begin practice as registered pharmacists.
See a current list of accredited ITPs.
We've provided an overview of the application process here. You can also review the Pharmacy Program Accreditation Guide.
Applying to accredit a proposed new pharmacy program can take up to 30 months. If you have any questions about the process or timelines, please email us.
When you are planning a new pharmacy program, you should refer to our:
To let us know you'd like to apply for accreditation, please email us.
We recommend telling us you intend to launch a new program early in the planning phase. This will help you to avoid any delays in delivering your proposed new program. Please note, our Accreditation Committee (the Committee) cannot grant program accreditation retrospectively.
We'll ask you to fill out our 'Notification of Intent to apply for accreditation of a new pharmacy program' form.
We'll review your submission, and treat any information you provide as confidential. We'll then send you the appropriate documents and submission details for you to submit your accreditation application.
To apply for accreditation, submit your 'Accreditation Application' form that we send to you.
Before we provide it to our external assessors, we'll review your submission. If your application is not complete, we may return it to you and ask you to amend and re-submit it.
We treat all information you provide to us as confidential.
We'll engage 2 suitably qualified and experienced assessors. They will independently assess your written application and prepare a report of their findings.
During this stage, we may ask you to submit additional information requested by the assessors to assist them in preparing their individual reports.
We will then combine their findings into a single report for our Accreditation Committee.
For details on the assessors skills and expertise, see the Pharmacy Program Accreditation Guide.
Our Accreditation Committee (the Committee) will review the external assessment report. The Committee may ask for details on any aspect of the report before making an accreditation decision.
The Committee will decide to either:
The Committee may require you to address matters of concerns and/or submit future reporting and set a time for this.
We'll then let you know the results of their decision. If your program is accredited, we'll also update our website to show your program's accreditation status.
There a number of regular quality assurance and monitoring activities undertaken to maintain the ongoing accreditation of your program(s). These are outlined in our Accreditation Quality Assurance and Monitoring Policy and include the following activities.
We recognise that many factors can affect whether a program continues to meet the accreditation standards. As part of maintaining accreditation of your program(s), you'll need to submit an annual report. This report will contain:
We will email you an annual report template to be used for your accredited program. If you need a template re-sent to you, please email us.
The Committee will review your report. In some cases, it may need to impose further reporting requirements on your accreditation.
Some programs may be required to report against conditions and monitoring requirements that the Committee has applied. We will communicate requirements and due dates for your program reporting directly to you.
In the early years of the delivery of your new program, we will conduct a site visit. We will contact you directly to make the necessary arrangements.
See the Pharmacy Program Accreditation Guide for details about the structure of the visit.
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Up to 12 months before accreditation expires |
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6 weeks before the site visit |
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0-6 weeks before the site visit |
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2-6 months before accreditation expires |
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Before accreditation expires |
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You must tell us as soon as you decide to change anything about your accredited program. Use the Notification of Change to a Pharmacy Program form.
Material (major) changes in a program may affect its ability to meet the accreditation standards. For examples of types of material changes, see Notification of Change to a Pharmacy Program.
If you are unsure if you should notify us about a change, please email us.
Based on this information, the Committee will assess:
If we determine that your program change is material, you'll need to pay a Material Change fee.
Email us if you:
Discover how we accredit other types of programs and CPD accrediting organisations
More detailsWe accredit pharmacy programs against clear, agreed standards. See our standards for degree programs, ITPs and vaccination training.
More details