An observational tool designed to assess a practitioner's ability to perform a bespoke clinical task or skill. If your observation involves multiple tasks then this is not an appropriate tool to use. Before the RPS expanded the suite of supervised learning event (SLE) tools, DOPS tended to be used for a multitude of tasks including patient counselling and delivery of teaching sessions.
Since this tool has been adapted from the Direct Observation of Procedural Skills used in medical training, it is probably best suited to when a pharmacist is developing a set of clinical skills whilst undertaking an Independent Prescribing Programme. Therefore examples could include:
Measuring a patient's blood pressure using a sphygmomanometer
Performing a cardiovascular examination (including listening for heart sounds, assessing jugular venous pressure)
Interpreting an ECG
Undertaking a respiratory assessment, including chest auscultation
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Post-registration Pharmacist Topic Guide (page 7) contains a list of core clinical assessment skills, for which a DOPS could be used to evaluate a practitioner's competence in performing them in practice.
The main point to consider is what the purpose of conducting a DOPS is for an individual pharmacist, taking into account their level of experience and competence. Is the purpose of today's observation to purely assess their approach to performing a particular skill or is it to assess whether they can identify a particular abnormality? Did a previous DOPS identify areas for development that an assessor wants to check have been addressed? For some skills it may not matter whether the patient has normal or abnormal signs / readings; the most important point is whether the practitioner can accurately perform the procedure - e.g. measuring blood pressure, checking oxygen saturations.
If a date for completing a DOPS is planned in advance, remember that the unpredictable nature of a case mix on any day may limit what can be assessed - e.g. whilst a patient may need a respiratory examination, their presentation will dictate which abnormalities may be identified. However, if the purpose of the DOPS on that day is to focus on assessing a pharmacist's approach to undertaking a particular clinical assessment, then this is acceptable. If an assessor is satisfied that a pharmacist's approach to undertaking a specific examination skill is thorough, but now want to challenge them further by assessing whether they can identify specific abnormalities, the SLE may need to be conducted on a different ward and organised at short notice when the assessor identifies a patient with a particular abnormality. However, assessors should ensure that they don't divulge to the pharmacist that they plan to assess whether they can identify a specific abnormality; instead they could say "I've got an interesting patient for you to practice a respiratory examination on."