Pharmacists Council (Professional Conduct) Regulations, 2025

The Pharmacists Council of Zimbabwe, with the Minister of Health's approval, has made new professional conduct regulations applying to every member registered with the Council — pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and optometrists. They repeal the Opticians and Dispensing Opticians (Professional Conduct) Regulations 1973 and the Pharmacists (Professional Conduct) Regulations 1989.

Any contravention set out in the First Schedule is misconduct, and the Council may issue practice directives read alongside the regulations.

Advertising is tightly restricted. A member may not advertise or publicise their practice or business; permitted advertising must be factual, not misleading, dignified and restrained, and free of any reference to their own efficiency or to other members' facilities. Letterheads, business cards, similar stationery and directional signs are allowed, as are notices to other practitioners of a change of practice, and a member writing in the press or appearing on radio or television must be described by name, qualification and designation.

Commercially, no member may offer or give any discount or inducement for supplying a prescription or professional service, except where the Council permits it for a patient needing long-term therapy for a chronic condition or in financial difficulty. No member may enter a transaction that reflects negatively on their professional independence, and a member who is a director or partner in a pharmacy or optometry business must exercise sufficient control over it to ensure compliance.

Pharmacies may not sell groceries other than baby or invalid foods, nor tobacco or tobacco-related products. Blank prescription forms bearing a pharmacist's or pharmacy's name may not be distributed, secret or cipher prescriptions are prohibited, and collusion to direct prescriptions to a particular pharmacist or premises is barred.

Every member must hold adequate professional indemnity insurance throughout the period of a valid practising certificate, must disclose information and produce documents the Council needs to discharge its functions — with patient-identifying details removable where another law prohibits disclosure — and must meet the Council's continuous professional development requirements.

The First Schedule lists the acts constituting misconduct, including failure to declare a conflict of interest, treating without legally required consent, misrepresenting a remedy or device, offering gifts or rebates on prescriptions, jeopardising patient or public safety, restricting a patient's choice of practitioner without consent, dissuading a patient from seeing another practitioner, disparaging a colleague's professional reputation, and breaching the terms of a practising certificate. A Second Schedule sets out the scope of practice.