Understanding the use of a pharmacy e-referral at hospital discharge
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Understanding the implementation, use and sustainability of an electronic pharmacy referral service at hospital discharge.
IRAS ID
256167
Contact name
Mark Jeffries
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 1 months, 27 days
Research summary
Salford Royal Foundation Trust (SRFT) in collaboration with Salford Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) are introducing an electronic system enabling hospital pharmacists to electronically transfer discharge information to community pharmacists. The services will initially focus upon those patients in receipt of a new or existing monitored dosage system (MDS). A number of patients, depending upon their particular circumstances, may be offered medication counselling or post discharge medication review at their nominated community pharmacy. It is hoped that this pharmacy referral service will facilitate resolution of potential medication related issues and problems identified at or prior to discharge from hospital, whilst also helping to ensure each patient is receiving the right medicines throughout their care.
To justify the use of the e-referral service, develop recommendations for the intervention and for roll-out of the system in the future, we need to understand the perspectives of both health professionals and patients.To do this we will interview a range of primary and secondary care staff. These interviews will take place at the participant’s usual place of work. We will conduct interviews with patients (or their carers) to explore how they perceive and understand how the pharmacy referral service might help them with their medicine taking. These interviews will take place at the patient’s home, the home of a carer or close relative or University premises. Additionally we will collect publically available, relevant strategy and policy documents sourced from relevant national, local and NHS organisations (eg NHS England). These will be read and analysed to understand how the contextual background influences the various ways in which the pharmacy referral service is implemented and used.REC name
North West - Greater Manchester West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/NW/0110
Date of REC Opinion
11 Mar 2019
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion