UK Pharmacist Register Scraper

Search the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) public register — the official regulator for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, pharmacies, and training sites in Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales). Verify a professional's registration status, look up a pharmacy's inspection history, or check whether a training site is currently approved. No login, no API key, no proxy required.

What this actor does

• Four registers: pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, pharmacies (premises), and training sites
• Two lookup modes: search by name (or business name) and postcode/town, or look up directly by GPhC registration number
• Fuzzy name matching: enable the register's own phonetic "I'm not sure of the spelling" match to catch misspellings
• Prescriber annotation filter: narrow pharmacist searches to Independent Prescribers or Supplementary Prescribers
• Training sector filter: narrow training-site searches to a specific sector (Community, Hospital, Prison, Academic, Industrial, Internet, or a GP training programme) — combine with a * premises name to browse an entire sector
• Full detail enrichment: optionally fetches each result's individual registration page for registration-expiry dates, town, superintendent info, fitness-to-practise flags, and pharmacy inspection/enforcement history
• Empty fields are omitted — every record only contains data the register actually published

Output fields

Pharmacists & pharmacy technicians

Field	Description
registrationNumber	GPhC registration number
firstNames, lastName, fullName	Registrant name
status	e.g. Registered
registrationExpiryDate	Current registration expiry (dd/mm/yyyy)
town	Town associated with the registration
annotations	Prescriber annotations held (e.g. Independent Prescriber)
hasAnnotations	Boolean — whether any annotation is held
hasFitnessToPractiseInfo	Boolean — whether fitness-to-practise history exists
superintendentFor	Organisation name, if the pharmacist is a named superintendent
registerType	pharmacist or pharmacyTechnician
sourceUrl	Canonical registration page

Pharmacies & training sites

Field	Description
registrationNumber	GPhC registration number
pharmacyName / trainingSiteName	Business/premises name
ownerName	Registered owner
address, postcode	Full address and extracted UK postcode
status	e.g. Registered
sector	Training-site sector (e.g. Community)
approvedUntil	Training-site approval expiry date
inspectionReportPublished, inspectionReportUrl	Whether a pharmacy inspection report exists, and its link
subjectToNoticesOrConditions	Boolean
hasEnforcementHistory	Boolean
registerType	pharmacy or trainingSite
sourceUrl	Canonical registration page

Every record also includes recordType and scrapedAt (UTC timestamp).

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	select	byName	byName or byRegistrationNumber
registerType	select	pharmacist	pharmacist / pharmacyTechnician / pharmacy / trainingSite
firstName	string	–	Given name (pharmacist/pharmacyTechnician, mode=byName)
lastName	string	–	Surname (pharmacist/pharmacyTechnician, mode=byName)
premisesName	string	–	Business name (pharmacy/trainingSite, mode=byName)
townOrPostcode	string	–	Narrow a pharmacy/training-site search (mode=byName)
fuzzyMatch	boolean	false	Phonetic "not sure of the spelling" match
annotationFilter	select	(none)	INDPRESC / SUPPRESC (pharmacist, mode=byName)
sectorFilter	select	(none)	Training sector, e.g. Community / Hospital / Prison / Academic (trainingSite, mode=byName)
registrationNumber	string	–	Exact GPhC number (mode=byRegistrationNumber)
fetchDetails	boolean	true	Enrich each result with its full detail page
maxItems	integer	20	Hard cap on emitted records (1–500)

Example: search pharmacists by surname

{
  "mode": "byName",
  "registerType": "pharmacist",
  "lastName": "Smith",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Example: find all Boots pharmacies in London

{
  "mode": "byName",
  "registerType": "pharmacy",
  "premisesName": "Boots",
  "townOrPostcode": "London",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: exact lookup by registration number

{
  "mode": "byRegistrationNumber",
  "registerType": "pharmacist",
  "registrationNumber": "2025781"
}

Example: independent prescribers named Smith

{
  "mode": "byName",
  "registerType": "pharmacist",
  "lastName": "Smith",
  "annotationFilter": "INDPRESC",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: browse all Community-sector training sites

{
  "mode": "byName",
  "registerType": "trainingSite",
  "premisesName": "*",
  "sectorFilter": "717750000",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Use cases

• Employer/HR due diligence — verify a pharmacist or pharmacy technician's registration status before hiring
• Compliance & audit — check whether a pharmacy has notices, conditions, or enforcement history
• Healthcare directories — build a searchable directory of registered pharmacies in a region
• Market research — analyse pharmacy chain footprint (e.g. all Boots/Superdrug/Lloyds branches in an area)
• Patient safety tools — confirm a prescriber holds Independent/Supplementary Prescriber status
• Training providers — check a training site's current approval status and expiry date

FAQ

What is the GPhC? The General Pharmaceutical Council is the independent statutory regulator for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and registered pharmacy premises in Great Britain.

Does this cover Northern Ireland? No — Northern Ireland has its own regulator (the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland). The GPhC register covers England, Scotland, and Wales only.

What's the difference between "search by name" and "registration number"? Name search returns every matching entry (paginated); registration number lookup returns the single exact match for that number.

What does the fuzzy match do? It mirrors the register's own "I'm not sure of the spelling" option, which uses phonetic matching to surface names that sound similar even if spelled differently.

Why do some pharmacy/training-site records not have an inspectionReportUrl? Not every registered pharmacy has a published inspection report yet — the field is only included when the register shows one exists.

How current is the data? The register is updated by the GPhC on an ongoing basis; each search results page shows the exact "last updated" timestamp from the source at scrape time.

Is a proxy or login required? No — the register is fully public. The actor uses a plain HTTP client with no proxy or authentication.

Why does sourceUrl return a 403 when I open it with a bare curl request? The GPhC site sits behind an AWS WAF that blocks requests without a normal browser User-Agent header. The link itself is valid and loads fine in any regular browser or HTTP client that sends a standard User-Agent (which is exactly what this actor does when fetching detail pages).