How to engage more pharmacists with undertaking research

I have worked for the NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) since 2012 as Lead Pharmacist for CRN West Midlands. In this role I provide advice and support to pharmacy staff in secondary care who support the delivery of clinical research by managing clinical trials medicines. I have also undertaken work to engage community pharmacists with delivering research delivery.

However, what has struck me working for the CRN is how few pharmacists lead their own research, particularly in secondary care. I have seen a small number of studies led by academic pharmacists adopted onto the CRN portfolio, but in my time as Lead Pharmacist I haven’t seen any studies adopted on the NIHR portfolio led by a hospital pharmacist in the West Midlands.

So, I decided to research this. For my Professional Doctorate in Pharmacy, I explored hospital pharmacists’ attitudes and opinions towards research.

There was very little literature on hospital pharmacists’ attitudes and opinions towards research undertaken in the UK, although studies had been conducted in other countries including the US, Canada, Australia and Qatar.

The first phase of my research was exploratory in nature and utilised qualitative methods - semi-structured interview with research-active pharmacists and chief pharmacists at four case study sites acute secondary care NHS Trusts where the pharmacy departments were research-active).

Case study methodology was chosen as organisational culture and the leadership of the chief pharmacist had been identified as being influential factors from a feasibility study. I found barriers, enablers, drivers and drawbacks to research engagement. I also identified factors pertaining to the organisational culture at departmental and Trust level that appeared to influence research activity within pharmacy departments. To determine how widely these findings were shared, I followed up the case studies with a survey among chief pharmacists of acute secondary care NHS Trusts in England.

It was no surprise that I found there to be barriers to research activity among hospital pharmacists, and that enablers could be identified which would overcome these barriers. Lack of time and lack of prioritisation were identified as the main barriers. Similarly lack of research expertise was identified as a barrier. Lack of awareness and understanding of the importance of research was also identified as another barrier.

External drivers to engagement included organisational drivers, as well as drivers relating to the profession (such as research being an expectation of pharmacists and a need to raise awareness of research within the profession). I also found drivers related to the individual, including a personal desire to undertake research to improve patient care at a strategic level. Drawbacks on the other hand included lower salaries for pharmacists undertaking PhDs and short contracts for research, as well as drawbacks for the organisation such as difficulty back-filling posts to allow individuals to undertake grant-funded research.

Perhaps more interesting was the influence of organisational culture, and the importance of the leadership of the chief pharmacist in relation to the levels of research activity among pharmacists. At all of the case study sites, the chief pharmacist was supportive of pharmacists undertaking research. They recognised the importance of research. They allowed staff to undertake research, either through research grants or by research being part of pharmacists’ roles. In addition, the pharmacy departments all had a culture for research. They had a pharmacist identified as leading research, who not only made research visible, but could also offer support to others.

Interestingly, my findings not only resonated with the findings of other research undertaken with hospital pharmacists, but there were also similarities with research undertaken with community pharmacists and medics. This suggests the findings are not limited to hospital pharmacists. There is a real need to raise awareness among healthcare professionals of the importance of research, so they value research and understand why it is needed. However, we need to move away from a reliance on the personal interest and desire to conduct research. To engage across the profession, research needs to be part and parcel of what all healthcare professionals do in their professional practice. How do we change this? We need to change the culture both at a professional level and an organisational level. With the NHS having a hierarchical structure, developing a culture of research leadership needs to start at the top.