Pharmacy Setting
Key selling points for research in pharmacy;
To help their patients or customers to have a better quality of life
Access to new treatments,
To provide variety in their job
To link pharmacists to a wider team as they may not
Possibility of contributing to NICE guidelines
On the NIHR page you can find out about NIHR research that could help community pharmacists and their teams improve and expand their pharmacy services.
The NHS webpage provides an overview of what services a pharmacy provides, information about pharmacists and also how to find pharmacies in your area.
The NIHR article about why we should engage pharmacists in research, about research champions and some information from the community pharmacy perspective and the Rococco study.
Engaging with research in Your Local Pharmacy video
This video, built by the East of England, is aimed at new to research Community Pharmacists who want to know more about how they can be involved with research, it includes frequently asked questions to aide engagement and help you to understand the priorities in this setting. It may be used if a community pharmacy shows interest in research and wants to find out a little more, or as part of an introduction if a study comes up.
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) have developed a learning package which is for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians interested in research however it may be useful for you to understand the priorities of pharmacists and to introduce ways of communicating.
Top tips;
Community Pharmacy is a good setting for opportunistic recruitment of people who may not visit other health care settings very frequently.
Community Pharmacy databases do not work in the same way as GP Practice ones. They are not suitable for a search and mail out. They mainly contain information about their medication. They do not contain full medical notes. However pharmacies can flag particular patients and see them on their next pick up of medication.
Community Pharmacies are NHS contractors. However they interact with well/healthy people as they also offer over the counter health advice and are able to sell certain medications to help with self care.
Community Pharmacies have NHS.net emails. Individual staff, particularly counter staff, do not. This can limit what they can access with respect to NIHR Learn which is set to automatically accept some domains such as .nhs, .gov. .ac
All newly qualified Pharmacists have a masters degree. Those who qualified a long time ago may have gained a masters on further studies but will have qualified with a bachelor's degree.
When a pharmacist qualifies they can go to community, hospital or primary care, some go to academia. Most pharmacists right now in the community don't have research as part of their role.
Pharmacists work to Evidence Based Medicine guidelines for example they use NICE and other guidelines - this is a selling point, as it means they are aware of the importance of research.
Community Pharmacists and their staff do not usually have 'office or admin time' to complete e-learning within their working hours - be considerate of this.
Community Pharmacies are aligned with GP Practices, and Primary Care Networks. Many work quite closely with their local practices and could be engaged when engaging the primary care team.
Special thanks to Clare Daly, Community Pharmacy Lead in the East of England Network for contributing to this page.
There are further resources in the awesome table