Patients’ experiences of general practice-based pharmacists (v4)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Patients’ experiences of general practice-based pharmacists in England: an exploratory qualitative study
IRAS ID
241663
Contact name
Georgios Dimitrios Karampatakis
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Reading
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N/A, N/A
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
What are the experiences and the needs of patients concerning general practice-based pharmacists?\n\nIn England, there is a drive to integrate pharmacists into general practices through large national schemes. The integration began with a pilot project followed by a second phase of roll-out aiming to introduce one practice-based pharmacist per 30,000 population by 2020. The availability of practice-based pharmacists to this extent is a new service offered in UK primary care. In terms of evaluating the service’s impact on the wider healthcare system, a set of ten national Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) has already been developed (eight numerical and two based on patient and GP experiences).\nPatients’ experiences have been historically deemed as one of the main domains that mirror the quality of a new healthcare service. Therefore, our purpose with this qualitative study is to directly work with patients and elicit their experiences with regards to general practice-based pharmacists including their service preferences, information needs, other expectations they may have from the service and their current satisfaction levels. The study will involve a series of individual, face-to-face, interviews with patients who have experienced practice-based pharmacists’ services and who are registered with general practices part of the Ealing GP Federation in West London. All interviews will be carried out in meeting or consultation spaces inside the practice with which each patient is registered. Our aim is to understand patients’ views in depth. We anticipate that our findings will inform national policy on how to shape the service to better meet patients’ expectations and/or needs including introducing appropriate improvements in the way the service is offered or marketed to the patients. \nThe research is supported by a University of Reading Postgraduate Studentship. We anticipate that the overall project (data collection, analysis and written up) will take approximately 12 months.\n
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/YH/0347
Date of REC Opinion
4 Sep 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion