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Pharmacy: State-of-the-Art and Perspectives in UK

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Special Issue Information
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Published Papers

A special issue of Pharmacy (ISSN 2226-4787).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 7941

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Arit Udoh

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Guest Editor

College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Heritage Building ITM, Birmingham B15 2TH, UK
Interests: medication therapy management; public health; clinical drug development; oncology; clinical pharmacy; pharmacy education; workforce development; research methods

Dr. Ifunanya Ikhile

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Medical Education Centre, Medical School, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2UH, UK
Interests: pharmacy/health workforce development, assessment; quality assurance of education

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The COVID-19 pandemic, which changed our ways of working and disrupted the status quo globally, has also accelerated innovations in pharmacy practice within the UK. The objective of these innovations includes advancing the pharmacy profession and ensuring population health needs are addressed in the face of disruptions to health systems. As frontline health workers, pharmacists and pharmacy support staff have adapted rapidly to these disruptions, taking on new roles alongside expansion in the scope of practice. Novel pharmaceutical care delivery models have also emerged, with traditional care pathways undergoing innovation to cope with the new normal. This Special Issue invites papers that address innovations in pharmacy across all practice and education settings in the UK. This can include but is not limited to:

Evolving practice models or settings including novel or expanded pharmacy roles and services;
Innovations in traditional care delivery methods and use of technology (e.g., telepharmacy, digital health, virtual clinics, remote drug monitoring models);
Innovations in pharmacy education, training, and assessment methods including workforce development;
Policy incremental shifts or reforms and their impact on education and practice;
Problematizing pharmacy innovations (e.g., technical implementation, ongoing problems/challenges, impact on patient care and patient satisfaction, ethical considerations, economic and cost implications).

The goal is to collate and highlight innovations in pharmacy practice and how these have affected or will affect patient outcomes and the way care is delivered now and in the future.

Dr. Arit Udoh
Dr. Ifunanya Ikhile
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Pharmacy is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

practice innovations
pharmacy practice
pharmacy education
pharmacy policy
digital health
new technologies
telepharmacy

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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12 pages, 240 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Patient Experiences of Community Pharmacy Medication Supply and Medicines Reconciliation at Hospital Discharge: A Pilot Qualitative Study

by Rhona Mundell, Derek Jamieson, Gwen Shaw, Anne Thomson and Paul Forsyth

Pharmacy 2024, 12(2), 66; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy12020066 - 10 Apr 2024

Viewed by 715

Abstract

(1) Background: As part of the Scottish Government’s five-year recovery plan to address the backlog in NHS care following the COVID-19 pandemic, community pharmacies in Scotland are planned to provide a Hospital Discharge Medicines Supply and Medicines Reconciliation Service. We aimed to qualitatively explore patients’ experiences with this new service. (2) Method: Adult patients (≥18 years age) who consented to participate in the Community Pharmacy Hospital Discharge and Medicines Reconciliation Service were invited for an interview within 21 days of discharge from hospital. Qualitative, one-to-one, semi-structured patient interviews were conducted by telephone and audio-recorded using Microsoft Teams^®. The interview audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and underwent thematic analysis. (3) Results: Twelve patients were interviewed, evenly split by sex and with a median age of 62 years (range 36 to 88 years). Our analysis generated main five themes: patient engagement, stakeholder communication, practical factors, human factors, and comparative experiences. Many of these were interdependent. (4) Conclusions: Patients appreciated that the service ensured a quicker discharge from hospital. Good stakeholder communication, practical factors (including choice, location, and the realities of obtaining their medication from the community pharmacy), and a pre-existing and trusted relationship in their usual community pharmacy were the key factors that regulated the patient experience. Generally, patients were positive about the introduction of this new service. However, the lack of a previous relationship or trust with a community pharmacy, and previous experiences with medication supply problems were factors which had the potential to negatively impact patient experiences. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pharmacy: State-of-the-Art and Perspectives in UK)

17 pages, 722 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Pilot Study to Establish the Leadership Development Needs of Community Pharmacist Leads in Lambeth, South East London

by Mohammed Patel, Finlay Royle and Ricarda Micallef

Pharmacy 2023, 11(4), 114; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy11040114 - 06 Jul 2023

Viewed by 1313

Abstract

Primary care networks (PCNs) are geographical networks consisting of 30,000 to 50,000 patients and groups of general practices working in a multidisciplinary team, including community pharmacists. Community pharmacy (CP) neighbourhood leads act as a conduit between pharmacy contractors and general practitioners (GPs) in these networks, sharing information and providing a voice for the community pharmacy locally. The Lambeth medicines team (NHS South East London Integrated Care Board) recognised the need to continue funding these leadership roles to address barriers to relationship-building between community pharmacies and general practices, the consistency of service delivery and effective communication. The aim of this study was to understand the current experience of CP neighbourhood leads to inform their further development. All eight CP neighbourhood leads individually completed a semi-structured interview over Microsoft Teams, which was then reviewed using content analysis. Ethical approval was received. Leads reported the use of common communication methods such as emails, text messaging applications and telephone calls to engage GPs and pharmacies in their neighbourhoods. Barriers to undertaking their roles included time constraints, delays in responses, high workloads and competing pressures. Other factors impacting their effectiveness and ability to undertake their roles included the scheduling of meetings outside of working hours, finding time during busy working days and organising locum cover on an ad hoc basis. The leads also reported they spent more time focussed on building relationships with their peers and less time focussed on general practice colleagues. Support for CP neighbourhood leads could include ensuring that funded time is protected; communication and technology training; and the provision of more structural support for communication with GPs. The findings of this study can be used to inform future work. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pharmacy: State-of-the-Art and Perspectives in UK)

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16 pages, 453 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Exploring the Views of Healthcare Professionals Working in a Mental Health Trust on Pharmacists as Future Approved Clinicians

by Balazs Adam and Richard N. Keers

Pharmacy 2022, 10(4), 80; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy10040080 - 12 Jul 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2136

Abstract

This qualitative research explored the views and attitudes of healthcare professionals towards the role of the mental health pharmacist, and whether this group should be enabled to become approved clinicians (ACs) in England and Wales under the Mental Health Act in future. Following ethical approval, recruitment based on systematic purposive sampling principles took place at one mental health trust in England. Six pharmacists, five medical ACs and two mental health nurses participated in one-to-one digitally audio-recorded semi-structured interviews between June and November 2020. The recordings were transcribed verbatim before being inductively coded and thematically analysed. Notwithstanding the wide recognition among participants of several key skills possessed by mental health pharmacists, various obstacles were identified to them becoming ACs in future, including prevalent conventional models of pharmacy services delivery restricting adequate patient access, as well as insufficient training opportunities to acquire advanced clinical skills, particularly in diagnosis and assessment. In addition to the inherent legislative hurdles, fundamental changes to the skill mix within multidisciplinary mental health teams and improvements to the training of pharmacists were reported by participants to be required to equip them with essential skills to facilitate their transition towards the AC role in future. Further research is needed to gain a better understanding of the challenges facing the clinical development and enhanced utilisation of mental health pharmacists and non-medical ACs across services. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pharmacy: State-of-the-Art and Perspectives in UK)

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Other

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13 pages, 747 KiB

Open AccessPerspective

The Pharmacist Prescriber: A Psychological Perspective on Complex Conversations about Medicines: Introducing Relational Prescribing and Open Dialogue in Physical Health

by David Rogalski, Nina Barnett, Amanda Bueno de Mesquita and Barry Jubraj

Pharmacy 2023, 11(2), 62; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy11020062 - 22 Mar 2023

Viewed by 2851

Abstract

Pharmacists have traditionally supported the prescribing process, arguably in reactive or corrective roles. The advent of pharmacist prescribing in 2004 represented a major shift in practice, leading to greater responsibility for making clinical decisions with and for patients. Prescribing rights require pharmacists to take a more prescriptive role that will allow them to contribute to long-standing prescribing challenges such as poor medication adherence, overprescribing, and the need for shared decision-making and person-centered care. Central to these endeavors are the development and possession of effective consultation skills. University schools of pharmacists in the UK now routinely include consultation skills training, which is also provided by national education bodies. These challenges remain difficult to overcome, even though it is understood, for example, that increasing the effectiveness of adherence interventions may have a far greater impact on the health of the population than any improvement in specific medical treatments. More recently, a concerted effort has been made to tackle overprescribing and the harm that may occur through the inappropriate use of medication. In routine pharmacy work, these priorities may linger at the bottom of the list due to the busy and complex nature of the work. Solutions to these problems of adherence, optimizing benefits of medication, and overprescribing have typically been pragmatic and structured. However, an arguably reductionist approach to implementation fails to address the complex patient interactions around prescribing and taking medication, and the heterogeneity of the patient’s experience, leaving the answers elusive. We suggest that it is essential to explore how person-centered care is perceived and to emphasize the relational aspects of clinical consultations. The development of routine pharmacist prescribing demands building on the core values of person-centered care and shared decision making by introducing the concepts of “relational prescribing” and “open dialogue” to cultivate an essential pharmacotherapeutic alliance to deliver concrete positive patient outcomes. We provide a vignette of how a clinical case can be approached using principles of relational prescribing and open dialogue. We believe these are solutions that are not additional tasks but must be embedded into pharmacy practice. This will improve professional satisfaction and resilience, and encourage curiosity and creativity, particularly with the advent of all pharmacists in Great Britain becoming prescribers at graduation from 2026. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pharmacy: State-of-the-Art and Perspectives in UK)

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