Abstract
The 'Clinical Pharmacists in General Practice' (CPGP) pilot provided a template for general practice pharmacy professionals' (GPPPs) roles encouraging NHS England to fund >2000 practice-based pharmacists. However, many GPPPs work outside the CPGP initiative and little is known about the services they provide. To explore services provided by all UK GPPPs (pharmacists/pharmacy technicians), including the types of services, perceived benefits and barriers to role development. A 26-item electronic questionnaire was developed using SurveyMonkey and piloted during cognitive interviews. A cross-sectional survey was conducted via social media, primary care organisations and emails to CPGP pilot sites between November 2018 and March 2019. Three reminders were sent 1 week apart. Ninety-one complete responses were received (81 pharmacists; 10 technicians). Over 80% of pharmacists provided clinical services, such as medication reviews or management of long-term conditions. More pharmacists within CPGP pilot managed repeat prescribing requests (P=0.035). Technicians took responsibility for primarily non-clinical roles, including commissioning or safety alerts/drug recalls. A third of GPPPs wished to develop care home services. Perceived benefits of GPPPs' services included improved utilisation/development of professional skills, identifying medicines-related issues and reduction in medication waste. Respondents were satisfied with professional relationships but reported workload issues, limited patient awareness of their roles and restricted opportunities to contribute to service development, which was associated with unsatisfactory support/mentorship (P<0.001). General practice pharmacy professionals deliver clinical and non-clinical services which may benefit patients, general practice and the healthcare system. General practices and national organisations should provide GPPPs with tailored support and exploit the combined strengths of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to tackle increased workload.
Highlights
The UK National Health Service (NHS) is under considerable strain due to ongoing general practitioner (GP) workforce crisis.[1,2] More than a half of GPs in England are close to retirement age and 90% feel adversely affected by increasing workload.[3]
We found that 70% of pharmacists within the NHS England’s scheme managed repeat prescribing requests compared to only 47% of those outside the pilot even though no differences were observed in the proportion of time spent delivering this service
The results presented here imply that organisations participating in the NHS England’s pilot may have utilised the new general practice pharmacy professionals’ (GPPPs)’ roles to help reduce this repeat prescription burden, while such a strategy may be far less common amongst the organisations external to the scheme
Summary
The UK National Health Service (NHS) is under considerable strain due to ongoing general practitioner (GP) workforce crisis.[1,2] More than a half of GPs in England are close to retirement age and 90% feel adversely affected by increasing workload.[3] In order to alleviate these service pressures, NHS England launched the ‘Clinical Pharmacists in General Practice’ (CPGP) pilot, which part-funded 490 pharmacists with an aim of enhancing patients’ access to general practice, supporting the management of long-term conditions and improving communication between care settings.[4,5,6] The success of phase 1 urged the Government to invest £112 million into an additional 1500 pharmacists to undertake largely patient-facing clinical roles contributing to the delivery of quality and outcomes framework published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Pharmaceutical Society Many GPPPs work outside the CPGP initiative and little is known about the services they provide
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