Abstract
Abstract Hospital pharmacy in the United Kingdom has developed in the past 20 years from mainly a supply function to a more patient-orientated function. In addition, pharmacists in hospitals are interacting more with medical colleagues on drug issues, and affecting patient care directly or indirectly, through initiatives such as the formation of drug protocols/guidelines and the formation of formulary management systems. Postgraduate clinical pharmacy programmes have been developed in order to meet the needs of hospital pharmacists who have to undertake such roles. It might be expected that the 16 higher education institutions offering these programmes would differ to some extent. However, a non-judgmental, descriptive content analysis showed variation in all aspects of the programmes, namely, programme type/timescale, programme delivery/structure, choice, professional skills, research training and clinical content. The differences found were greater than was expected. On the basis of evidence obtained in this study, postgraduate clinical pharmacy programmes cannot be regarded as producing equivalent types of practitioners. Questions arise about whether these programmes meet the needs of pharmacist participants in extending their clinical role.
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