Consultations

Public consultations are an important part of our regulatory process. They reflect our commitment to transparency, accountability, and inclusive decision-making and help ensure that the voices of patients, pharmacy professionals, and system partners are heard and considered in shaping the future of pharmacy practice.

Why We Consult

Public consultations help guide the development and refinement of regulations, policies, guidelines, and other documents that impact pharmacy practice in Ontario. By inviting feedback from a broad range of system partners—including the public, registrants and healthcare partners—we ensure that our decisions are informed and aligned with our mandate to protect the public. 

When We Consult

The College uses a consultation framework (see below) to help determine if public consultation is required.

College consultations are typically initiated when:

• New regulations, standards, policies or guidelines are proposed
• Existing regulations, standards, policies or guidelines are being reviewed or updated
• The College identifies emerging issues that may affect patient care or pharmacy operations

How Consultations Support Transparency

Transparency is a key value and regulatory principle for the College. We publish consultation materials and clearly outline submission deadlines on our website. Feedback received is reviewed thoroughly and shared publicly in accordance with posting guidelines (see below). This open process ensures that our actions are visible, understandable, and accountable to the people we serve.

The Role of Feedback in Decision-Making

Feedback collected through consultations plays a critical role in shaping the College’s policies and actions. It informs the Board of Directors as they deliberate on key issues, helping them make decisions that reflect the needs and concerns of the public and the profession.

Consultation Process

In order to help guide the development of regulations, policies, guidelines and other documents related to pharmacy practice, the College routinely requests input from registrants of the profession, the public and other system partners.

Documents that are available for consultation are posted on our website with clearly specified submission deadlines. To ensure transparency and encourage open dialogue, the feedback we receive is published in accordance with the posting guidelines (see below).

The College reviews and considers all feedback before finalizing the policy, guideline or other document.

More information about the College’s policy process and what triggers policy development or review can be found on the College Policy Process infographic.

Posting Guidelines

To promote transparent, respectful and constructive dialogue, the feedback we receive through our online consultations is published in accordance with the Posting Guidelines below:

1. Those who wish to post a comment on the consultation can do so by identifying whether they are a pharmacist, pharmacy technician, applicant or member of the public. Names of individuals are not posted with their feedback.
2. Individuals can post on behalf of an organization. Names of organizations are posted with their feedback.
3. The College does not review and is not responsible for the accuracy of content of any feedback or associated references or links that are posted. The College does not edit feedback, and all comments are posted exactly as they are received.
4. The College reserves the right to refuse to post feedback that, in its sole discretion:
   1. Is unrelated to the policy or issue under consideration on that specific open consultation topic;
   2. Contains complaints and/or compliments about identifiable pharmacy or any other healthcare professionals, individuals or organizations;
   3. Is abusive, disrespectful, obscene, harassing or threatening. This can include, but is not limited to, potentially libelous or defamatory comments, or those that could be regarded as unprofessional, distasteful or offensive towards an individual or organization, or those considered to be inconsistent with the College’s Code of Ethics (for pharmacy professionals); or
   4. Does not comply with the College’s Privacy Policy.

Consultation Framework

Standard, Policy And Guideline Consultation Framework

When drafting new, or revising existing, standards, policies, guidelines or other guidance documents that are intended to define expectations in practice the College uses the ‘Consultation Framework’ to determine if stakeholder consultation is required by applying the following principles:

Consultation Principles

• System partner consultation on a standard, policy or guideline will be considered when a new or revised standard, policy or guideline:
  1. Addresses an issue directly related to patient or public safety; or
  2. Is likely to have a significant impact on registrant practice; or
  3. Is likely to have a significant impact on pharmacy practice or operations; or
  4. Relates to a shared scope of practice and/or will have an impact on inter- professional collaboration.
• The College will ensure that sufficient time is allotted to receive, assess, and consider system partner feedback.
• All feedback will be publicly shared.
• All feedback will be carefully considered in the development of final documents.

The consultation process ensures that the public, practitioners and all other interested system partners have an opportunity to provide feedback on new and revised documents related to pharmacy practice prior to final approval.

Documents that are available for consultation are posted on the College website with clearly specified submission deadlines. The duration of consultations is generally 60 days but may vary according to Board’s needs and the status of a topic. The College may also solicit comments directly from targeted system partners.

To ensure transparency and encourage open dialogue, the feedback received is posted in accordance with posting guidelines (see above). Individual feedback is anonymized although specified as from a pharmacist, pharmacy technician, applicant, or member of the public, and organizations are identified. All feedback is posted for the duration of the consultation for public viewing and comments and archived on the website for future reference.

All feedback is considered, even that which is not incorporated into the final version. When considering how to incorporate feedback, the College considers how comments and suggestions align with the mandate of the College.