New93 role standards, now public
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Role standards

Pharmacy

Pharmacy technician

What a newly trained pharmacy technician must get right on every prescription: the right patient, the right product and the right entry, stock that is safe to dispense, and every clinical question handed to the pharmacist. Drawn from the national accreditation standard for technician education and the PTCB certification exam.

Practice this assessmentHire for this role
Expectations
10
Safety red lines
4
Sources
3
Version
1

Built from American Society of Health-System Pharmacists and Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, Pharmacy Technician Certification Board, Drug Enforcement Administration, Diversion Control Division. Reviewed by clinicians, last on .

01What the role is measured on#

Every verdict is made of the same five dimensions. Each is scored on its own, so a candidate sees where they are strong and where to work.

  • Clinical skillsThe hands-on and judgement work of the role: recognising what matters, acting in the right order, and knowing when something cannot wait.
  • Workflow and toolsGetting the work done in a real setting: the systems, records, equipment and handoffs the role runs on, used correctly and on time.
  • Patient communicationHow the role talks with patients, families and colleagues: listening, explaining plainly, and confirming what was understood.
  • Compliance and safetyThe rules that protect people: privacy, consent, infection control, reporting duties and the safety checks the role is accountable for.
  • Role knowledgeKnowing the job itself: what the role is responsible for, where its scope ends, and who to bring in when it does.

02What a ready hire does#

What a competent pharmacy technician does on day one, dimension by dimension.

Clinical skills

  • Enters and fills each prescription exactly as written for the right patient - drug, strength, dosage form, directions, quantity, days supply and prescriber - and brings every mismatch or alert to the pharmacist instead of resolving it.
  • Prepares sterile and non-sterile compounds within USP 795, 797 and 800 - hand hygiene and garbing, aseptic technique in the primary engineering control, correct beyond-use dating and hazardous drug handling - and stops when technique is broken.

Workflow and tools

  • Keeps stock safe to dispense: rotates by expiry, stores at the right temperature, separates look-alikes, acts on recalls and suspect product, and quarantines anything compromised for the pharmacist to decide.
  • Submits accurate prescription claims and resolves rejections by correcting real errors, never by changing facts to make a claim pay.

Patient communication

  • Explains the non-clinical parts of a prescription - pick-up, labels, costs, next steps - in plain language, checks the patient understood, and uses an interpreter instead of a family member when language is a barrier.
  • Responds to an upset patient by acknowledging the problem, giving an honest update and a real option, and involving the pharmacist when safety or clinical care is in play.

Compliance and safety

  • Confirms the patient's identity with at least two identifiers at every hand-off and every profile look-up, and checks the authority of anyone collecting on a patient's behalf.
  • Handles controlled substances within federal and state law - secure storage, exact counts, correct records, and immediate reporting of any discrepancy to the pharmacist.

Role knowledge

  • Recognises every question or decision that needs a pharmacist's judgment and hands it over at once, without answering it first.
  • Protects patient information at the counter, on the phone and in the system, sharing only what the person is entitled to and only through permitted channels.

03Safety red lines#

Any one of these keeps a candidate from Ready Day One, whatever the rest of the score. They are published so nobody meets them for the first time in the assessment.

  • Would override or clear a drug utilisation review alert, change the drug, strength, directions or quantity on a prescription, or fill with a product whose barcode or NDC does not match the label, without the pharmacist's review.

    Alerts and scans exist to stop the error before the pharmacist ever sees it. Clearing them removes the check without anyone knowing it has gone, and the wrong drug or dose reaches the patient.

  • Would hand a prescription to someone without having them state two identifiers matched against every prescription in the bag - for example on a surname and a 'yes' - or release to a collector without checking their authority.

    A medicine handed to the wrong person harms two patients: the one who takes a drug not meant for them, and the one left without their own.

  • Would return to stock, dispense or leave on the shelf a product that is expired, recalled, suspected counterfeit or tampered with, or that went outside its storage temperature, instead of quarantining it and telling the pharmacist.

    Insulin, vaccines and biologics that have warmed or frozen can fail without any visible change, and a recalled or counterfeit product can injure the patient who receives it.

  • Would answer a clinical question themselves - a dose, an interaction, a side effect, whether it is safe to take something, which over-the-counter product to use - or tell a patient to take or stop a medicine, instead of bringing in the pharmacist.

    The technician does not have the training or the legal authority to make these judgments, and a confident wrong answer at the counter is acted on at home.

04Outside the role#

Knowing where the role stops is part of the standard. Going past it is not extra credit.

  • Does not counsel patients or give clinical advice about medicines, symptoms, doses, interactions or over-the-counter products.Offers the pharmacist's counselling, fetches the pharmacist, and passes on the question with its context.
  • Does not perform final verification of a prescription, except in states that expressly permit technician product verification under defined conditions.Prepares the prescription for the pharmacist's check and never releases one the pharmacist has not verified.
  • Does not override drug utilisation review alerts or clinical claim rejections, or change a prescription's content.Brings every alert, rejection with a clinical reason and unclear direction to the pharmacist.
  • Does not take a new verbal prescription, or a change to one, from a prescriber unless the state expressly allows technicians to do so. Technician duties differ between US states and more sharply abroad, for example registered pharmacy technicians in the UK accuracy-check under their own registration.Passes the call to the pharmacist and works to the rules of the jurisdiction they practise in.

05How it is assessed#

  • A spoken assessment

    An examiner talks the candidate through realistic cases from this role, and follows up the way a senior colleague would.

  • Five dimensions

    Each answer is read against the expectations above and rated on the same four-level scale.

  • The 70 bar

    Every scorecard shows the score against 70, overall and for each dimension, with the reason for the verdict.

  • Safety first

    Crossing one of the safety red lines holds a pass back, however strong the rest was.

The four levels

  1. Not yet
  2. Developing
  3. Proficient
  4. Exemplary
How a verdict is made

06Sources and review#

Drawn from the certification frameworks and practice standards below, and reviewed by clinicians. Version 1, last reviewed .

Cited as sources. Not an endorsement by the organizations named.

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