Public consultation on revised draft PSI Guidelines on Record-Keeping in a Retail Pharmacy Business
The Guidelines incorporate recent legislative changes that enable electronic record-keeping in pharmacies. This public consultation will be open from 21 April to 19 May 2026.
About this public consultation
This consultation provides the opportunity to share your feedback on revised draft PSI Guidelines on Record-Keeping in Retail Pharmacy Businesses. The draft guidelines reflect recent legislative amendments that enable certain pharmacy records to be kept electronically. These changes come into operation on 30 June 2026. To keep records electronically, pharmacy computer software systems must meet certain specified minimum requirements.
The purpose of the revised guidelines is to provide information to support and enable pharmacies to implement appropriate record-keeping in line with current and new legislative requirements.
The guidelines provide a principles-based outline of the responsibilities of all registered pharmacists, including those in statutory governance roles (pharmacy owner, superintendent pharmacist and supervising pharmacist) in relation to the keeping of records in respect of medicinal products when conducting a retail pharmacy business.
The draft guidelines incorporate recent legislative amendments that enable certain pharmacy records to be kept electronically from 30 June 2026. The Guidelines comprise five guiding principles designed to support consistent, safe, compliant and high-quality record keeping in pharmacies.
Recent changes to enable electronic record-keeping in pharmacies
Recent legislative amendments have been introduced to enable pharmacies to keep the following pharmacy records electronically:
- Duty Register
- Prescription Register/Daily Audit
- Controlled Drugs Register
- Prescriptions transferred through Healthmail and the High-Tech Hub.
These changes are effective from 30 June 2026. To keep the above records electronically, the pharmacy computer software system in use must meet certain specified minimum requirements.
The option to continue keeping these records in paper-based format is retained in the legislation. In circumstances where the pharmacy computer software system does not meet the minimum required standard, pharmacies must continue to keep these records in paper-based format.
Further information about the technology requirements and other comprehensive information about the legislative changes is available in our FAQs and within the draft PSI Guidelines on Record-Keeping in a Retail Pharmacy Business.
In addition, the following new record-keeping requirements will also come into operation on 30 June 2026:
- Pharmacists will be required to include their registration number also on paper-based prescriptions as part of endorsing requirements.
- All pharmacists (including superintendents and pharmacy owners) working in pharmacies will be obliged to record their details in the daily duty register.
Including these changes now, provides for greater transparency and traceability of the pharmacist involved in the dispensing of a prescription and prepares for the rollout in the near future of national digital health systems.
You can read more about the recent legislation changes on our record-keeping page.
How to provide feedback on the draft Guidelines
We invite you to review the revised PSI Guidelines on Record-Keeping in a Retail Pharmacy Business and provide your feedback by 5pm on Tuesday, 19 May 2026. You can share your feedback in one of the following ways:
- Online questionnaire
The fastest way to provide your feedback is by completing this short online survey. - Email
You can also provide your feedback by email to consultation@psi.ie.
What happens next?
We value and appreciate all input received as part of public consultations. After the closing date, the PSI will assess and collate all feedback and draft a consultation report that will be considered by the PSI Council and published on our website. Any further changes proposed to the PSI Guidelines from the consultation feedback will be reviewed and decided on by the PSI Council.
Data Protection and Freedom of Information
The information provided to PSI consultations will be stored in a secure and confidential manner by the PSI. It will only be used for the purposes outlined and it will be deleted in line with the PSI’s record retention policy. After each public consultation we publish a consultation report on this website that contains a summary of comments received, the PSI response to those, and a list of any organisations that have given their feedback, where provided. Please note that submissions made to the PSI as part of public consultations are subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2014.
