RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access

Pharmacists in general practice: aqualitative interview case study ofstakeholders’ experiences in aWest London GP federationKath Ryan1* , Nilesh Patel1, Wing Man Lau1,3, Hamza Abu-Elmagd1, Graham Stretch2 and Helen Pinney2

Abstract

Background: Increased patient demand for healthcare services coupled with a shortage of general practitionersnecessitates changes in professional roles and service delivery. In 2016, NHS England began a 3-year- pilot study ofpharmacists in general practice, however, this is not an entirely new initiative. There is limited, current, evidence-based,UK research to inform the pilot so studies of pre-existing services must suffice until findings from a formal nationalevaluation are available.

Methods: The aim of this exploratory, descriptive interview study was to explore the experiences of stakeholders ineight general practices in the Ealing GP Federation, West London, where pharmacy services have been provided forseveral years. Forty-seven participants, including pharmacy team members (pre-registration and clinical pharmacists,independent prescribers and pharmacy technicians), general practitioners, patients, practice managers, practice nursesand receptionists took part in semi-structured, audio-recorded qualitative interviews which were transcribed verbatim,coded and analysed thematically to extract the issues raised by participants and the practicalities of providingpharmacy services in general practice.

Results: Findings are reported under the themes of Complementarity (incorporating roles, skills, education andworkloads); Integration (incorporating relationships, trust and communication) and Practicalities (incorporating locationand space, access, and costs). Participants reported the need for time to develop and understand the various roles,develop communication processes and build inter-professional trust. Once these were established, however,experiences were positive and included decreased workloads, increased patient safety, improved job satisfaction,improved patient relationships, and enhanced cost savings. Areas for improvement included patients’ awareness ofservices; pharmacists’ training; and regular, onsite access for practice staff to the pharmacy team.

Conclusions: Recommendations are made for the development of clear role definitions, identification of trainingneeds, dedication of time for team building, production of educational materials for practice staff members andpatients, and provision of on-site, full-time pharmacy services. Future work should focus on evaluation of variousmodels of employing pharmacy teams in general practice; integration of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians intomultidisciplinary general practice teams; relationships between local community pharmacy and general practicepersonnel; and patients’ service and information needs. A formal national evaluation of the pilot scheme is overdue.

Keywords: Pharmacists, General practice, Roles, Education, Communication, Trust, Patients’ awareness, UK

* Correspondence: k.m.ryan@reading.ac.uk1School of Pharmacy, University of Reading, Whiteknights Campus, PO Box226, Reading RG6 6AP, UKFull list of author information is available at the end of the article

© The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, andreproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link tothe Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver(http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

Ryan et al. BMC Health Services Research (2018) 18:234 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-3056-3

BackgroundCurrently, there is a nationwide shortage of 8000General Practitioners (GPs) across the UK [1]. In contrast,there is a surplus of registered pharmacists, with the ex-cess number, according to The Centre for WorkforceIntelligence, expected to be 11,000–19,000 by 2040 [1] ifroles remain unchanged. As a result, in 2015 the RoyalPharmaceutical Society (RPS), in collaboration with theRoyal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), proposedfurther integration of pharmacists into general practicesoutlining the various benefits that pharmacists could pro-vide. In 2015, NHS England announced a 3-year pilot at acost of £31 million to test the role of pharmacists workingin general practices, which resulted in 490 pharmacistsemployed across approximately 650 practices. In early2017 further funds (£122 million) were committed to sup-port an extra 1500 positions by 2020/21 [2].Having a pharmacist in a general practice team is not

new [3]. Because of recent changes in, and rapid devel-opment of, the role of pharmacists, there is limitedcurrent UK research that could inform the pilot [4, 5].Alongside impact metrics, work is needed on pre-existing collaborations. Early pilot sites can providepreliminary insights into the practicalities, benefits andbarriers of employing pharmacists in general practice,multidisciplinary team development, and stakeholder ex-periences of service provision. One pre-existing collabor-ation, now a pilot site, is in the Ealing GP Federation inWest London. In 2016, eight practices serving approxi-mately 70,000 patients had already been contracting aprivate company to provide pharmacy-related servicesfor approximately 3 years prior to the pilot. The phar-macy team, at that time, was comprised of a prescribinglead pharmacist (manager), lead pharmacy technician,field-based clinical diploma pharmacist, six prescribingpharmacists, six technicians, a pre-registration traineepharmacist and prescription delivery drivers. They pro-vided a variety of services, including face-to-face medica-tion reviews; long term condition, repeat prescriptionand medication management; triage; and acute care.Some services were provided in the general practice andsome in domiciliary settings, including surrounding resi-dential aged-care and nursing homes. The Ealing GPFederation model of integration of pharmacy servicesinto general practice is probably unique in employingpharmacy technicians but no work has been done to de-termine the variety of integrating models in existenceacross the UK. Because of its pre-existing nature, thismodel provides a timely case study to give insight intohow integration might evolve given time.International studies, mostly in Australia, New Zealand

and Canada, have primarily focussed on the experiences ofGPs, pharmacists and patients [4–15] and have shown posi-tive GP responses towards the integration of pharmacists

into general practices. GPs recognised that having apractice-based pharmacist decreased their workload andallowed them to focus on their diagnostic and prescribingroles, while pharmacists provided expert medication adviceand patient counselling [4, 10, 14]. Potential barriers to in-tegrating pharmacists into general practices were cited as alack of readiness in patients to accept them; the perceptionsof an already established and rigid hierarchy amongst exist-ing staff within the general practice; and the limited timethat pharmacists spent there [8, 10, 11, 13]. Gaps in the lit-erature include the experiences of other stakeholders in-volved in the patient’s care. Therefore, in this exploratorystudy we interviewed six stakeholder groups aligned withthe Ealing GP Federation (pharmacy team members, GPs,patients, practice managers, receptionists and nurses) to an-swer the question: What are the experiences of the variousstakeholders in a group of general practices currentlyemploying pharmacists?In an attempt to inform future development of new

pilot sites, in this paper we provide a descriptive reportof stakeholders’ experiences and outline their views onthe practicalities of setting up and maintaining pharmacyservices in general practice.

MethodsA pair of researchers, from a group of 12 final year Mas-ter of Pharmacy students was assigned to each one ofthe six stakeholder groups. The aim was to interview upto 12 people, unknown to the researchers, from eachgroup to capture a wide range of experiences. The re-searchers received qualitative interview training fromsupervisors with qualitative expertise and were givendetailed feedback on their early interviews. In-depth,semi-structured, face-to-face interviews were conductedduring Jan-Mar 2016.All staff members at the practices were contacted by

email by the lead pharmacy technician. They were pro-vided with a copy of the invitation letter, participant in-formation sheet and consent form and asked to notifythe lead pharmacy technician of their willingness to par-ticipate. A time was then arranged for the interview.One follow-up email was sent approximately 2 weeksafter the first.Eligible patients (aged 18 or above, competent to give

informed consent and English language speakers) wereidentified by the lead pharmacy technician at the time ofbooking a medication review appointment with the leadpharmacist. Patients were provided with an invitationletter, participant information sheet and consent formand invited to take part. Once consent was obtained theinterview was scheduled directly after the patient’s medi-cation review with the pharmacist.All participants who agreed to be interviewed gave

their written, informed consent before participating in

Ryan et al. BMC Health Services Research (2018) 18:234 Page 2 of 13

the study. Semi-structured, in-depth interview guideswere developed by the research team based on theknown nature of the participants’ roles and findingsfrom the scant published literature from overseas(Additional file 1). Questions were designed to allowparticipants to talk in a conversational manner abouttheir experiences in their own terms. Open-ended ques-tions, such as “What are your roles and responsibilitiesin this GP surgery?”, “Tell me about your experiences ofhaving/being a pharmacist working in this GP surgery”and “How have pharmacists in this GP surgery affectedhealthcare provision?” were followed up with prompts,for example about experiences, workloads, quality of re-lationships, feelings, barriers and facilitators to elicitmore detailed answers. Interviews were largely guided bythe participants themselves and they chose what to dis-cuss and how much to disclose. All interviews took placein a private area of the general practices.The interviews were audio-recorded and given a code ac-

cording to their stakeholder group and interview number(for example GP1 = general practitioner 1; M1 =manager 1;N1 = nurse 1; PA1 = patient 1; P1 = pharmacist 1; IP1 =independent pharmacist 1; CP1 = clinical pharmacist 1;PT = pharmacy technician; R1 = receptionist 1 etc). Therecordings were downloaded to password protectedcomputers as soon as practicable, after which the audiorecorders were cleared. Interviews were transcribedverbatim with all information anonymised, checked byeach pair of researchers, and stored on a universitypassword protected server. The first interview tran-script was reviewed by the lead researchers with eachpair who were encouraged to be reflexive about theirtechniques, and feedback was provided before furtherinterviews were scheduled.For this paper, data from each pair of student re-

searchers was pooled by another researcher (HAE),managed using NVivo 11 (QSR International), coded in-ductively from the interview transcripts and analysedusing interpretive thematic analysis [16, 17] and constantcomparison [18]. The research team met regularlythroughout the data analysis process to reduce thepossibility of researcher bias. Potential categories wereidentified, discussed by the authors and confirmed bydetailed re-reading of the transcripts. Further refine-ment and reduction occurred until a final list ofcategories was obtained and agreed by all the lead re-searchers. The themes were then finalized by collapsingcategories under descriptive titles that reflected thecontent of the data and addressed the aim of the study.Illustrative quotes, that represented the range of stake-holders, their experiences of pharmacists in generalpractice, the issues they raised and the analytical pointsbeing made, were selected for reporting and appear inthe text in italics.

ResultsForty-seven stakeholders took part in interviews lasting15–45 min. Table 1 shows the number interviewed andthe total number of potential interviewees in each stake-holder group together with basic demographics. Toguarantee anonymity, further demographic details couldnot be included. It can be seen that reasonable numbersof potential general practice staff participants were inter-viewed which provides credibility that the widest pos-sible range of experiences and opinions was obtained.Only nine patients were available for interview in thetime frame allocated.Figure 1 illustrates the three main themes and (inter-re-

lated) subthemes of practical significance derived from thedata that are presented here: Complementarity (incorpor-ating roles, skills, education and workloads), Integration(incorporating relationships, trust and communication)and Practicalities (incorporating location and space, accessand costs).

ComplementarityComplementarity is defined, by the Oxford Dictionary ofEnglish, as a relationship or situation in which two ormore different things improve or emphasize each other’squalities. Participants discussed the complementary na-ture of their roles and skills and the contribution, suchas decreased workloads, that pharmacists made to themulti-disciplinary team. They also talked about the needfor appropriate educational training and a clear under-standing of professional competencies.

RolesRoles identified for the pharmacy team included face-to-face appointments with patients to manage long termconditions, polypharmacy, medicines optimisation andpatient monitoring; spirometry clinics; treatment ofcommon ailments; telephone triage of medicines en-quiries; management of repeat prescriptions; reconcili-ation of discharge summaries; Quality and OutcomesFramework (QoF) monitoring and reporting; and thecompletion of prescribing audits. The pharmacy teamwas supervised by an experienced lead pharmacist andpharmacy technician. All pharmacists had a patient fa-cing role and those who had completed independentprescribing shared responsibility for authorising pre-scriptions. All practitioners were required to act withintheir respective competency. Clinics were booked up toa month in advance by receptionists, GPs and nurses.Pharmacists received mentorship by the lead pharmacistand a named GP. Technicians were trained and super-vised by the lead pharmacist and pharmacy technician.The processing of prescriptions was done both on siteand remotely using IT solutions (bespoke electronic sys-tems and support) including N3 (national broadband

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network for the NHS in England) connected securelaptops with access to SystmOne (the medical recordssoftware), on-line ordering for patients, scanning ofpaper orders and letters and NHS net secure email. Useof electronic transmission of prescriptions to communitypharmacies wherever possible and secure transport ofpaperwork by drivers was also deployed.

They do medication reviews… they do rounds innursing homes where they check all medication isbeing used appropriately… medication control andhealth promotion, lifestyle advice all those sort ofthings, could definitely be done by the pharmacist.

So there is definitely more roles for pharmacists ingeneral practice (M2).

The arguably unique feature of the Ealing GP Federationmodel of pharmacy services provision is the novel man-agement of repeat prescriptions utilising the expertise ofpharmacy technicians which was described as a lightbulb moment (GP2). There was a strong belief amongstreceptionists and managers that their previous in-volvement in repeat prescribing was beyond their skillsetand participants reported being more confident (M5) ina process that was much safer (R3) under the supervi-sion of a pharmacist. Repeat prescription requests, for

Table 1 Characteristics of stakeholder participants (n = no. of interviewees/total pool)

Demographic Stakeholder group

GP(n = 7/50)

Nurse(n = 6/18)

Manager(n = 8/9)

Patient(n = 9)

Pharmacist(n = 5/8)a

Pharmacy technician(n = 4/6)

Receptionist(n = 8/43)

Age (yrs)

< 25 1 1

25–34 2 2 2 1

35–44 3 1 2 1

45–54 1

55–65 1 1

> 65 1 4 1

Missing 1 5 8 5 4

Time at practice (yrs)

< 5 3 3 8 1 4 4 5

5–10 2 1 3

11–15 1 1 2

15–20 1 1

> 20 1 1 1b

aPharmacist group includes one pre-registration pharmacistbUnable to obtain the time at the practice for 4 patients

Fig. 1 Analytical themes and sub-themes

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example, were referred by the receptionists to the phar-macy team and were processed and issued according to a“48-h turnaround” protocol. The pharmacy techniciansreferenced the prescription request against the protocoland patient medical records and, if set criteria (such as anappropriate blood test, medication review and compliancewith local formulary) were met, the prescriptions weregenerated for a signature, most commonly from the pre-scribing pharmacist or, where appropriate for itemsrequiring medical input, the patient’s GP. Medication re-views were directed by the technicians to the most appro-priate healthcare professional, such as a GP, nurse orpractice pharmacist. Alternatively, patients had the optionto directly make an appointment to see the pharmacist ifthey wished to discuss medication-related concerns.Many members of staff reported increased under-

standing of the role of pharmacists in general practicealthough awareness remained limited for some recep-tionists, nurses, managers and patients.

It took us a while to get the nurses to realise that whenwe refer to the pharmacy team, they were differentfrom their chemist shop and that caused confusion atthe beginning (M4).

Let’s say the situation is whether to continue amedication the patient is on or specifically whenpatients complain about medication. A pharmacistwill not be able to answer that. It’s more clinical so I’drefer to see a GP… I don’t think the practice is thatdesperate for a pharmacist (N6).

It was suggested that to facilitate effective working be-tween pharmacists and other practitioners you’d have tohave regular meetings to help understand what eachother’s roles are (N1). All staff members identified thepharmacy team’s added contribution to the practicethrough educational talks.

We had a meeting with the prescribing advisor which thepharmacy team came to, that was quite a gooddiscussion, particularly having a pharmacist there whoreally knows their stuff… It was a different conversationthan previous prescribing meetings… a lot more focusedon particular medication and latest evidence (M2).

Pharmacists and technicians described increased jobsatisfaction derived from their extended roles, includinginvolvement in patient care, greater use of their skillsand increased responsibility.

It really diversifies my role, so I don't feel like I'm juststuck in the dispensary. I feel like I'm empowered tohelp patients to a greater degree (IP2).

This is the best job I've had, because… I see the wholepatient history, I see hospital letters, I see pathology, Isee the whole picture. Whereas in the communitypharmacy I could only see what they had come inwith, the medicines (IP1).

Future roles were discussed by GPs and managers.They identified the potential for pharmacists’ increasedinvolvement in the management of long-term conditionsand the establishment of a minor ailments clinic. Onemanager identified a potential future role for a phar-macy technician healthcare assistant with knowledgeabout medication and... [the ability to] take blood pres-sure, weight, height, all those kind of things (M2).

SkillsMembers of every stakeholder group thought that phar-macists had a strong knowledge of medications, citingmany instances in which they had used the pharmacyteam for information and advice. GPs and nurses de-scribed the pharmacists’ knowledge of medications assuperior to their own.

Their knowledge is way over and above anything weknow about drug interactions. (The pharmacist) canjust look at a list of medications “They shouldn’t be onthat, they should be on this” and he’s very, very good atpicking up on the subtleties of medication interactionsand the NICE guidance (GP6).

Two patients (PA3 & PA5) believed that the pharma-cist knew more about medication than the doctors (PA3).Several said that they had not previously thought to askabout their medicines and that the information theyreceived from the pharmacist was beneficial and import-ant, concluding that the pharmacist was the most appro-priate person to speak to for medication related queries.

I don’t even need to see a doctor… (The pharmacist is)so good she explains everything… not that I mind oneor the other but… I can see that the pharmacist for meis all I need (PA7).

GPs acknowledged the varied skills that they felt thepharmacy team possessed outside their defined roles, cit-ing the pharmacists’ ability to counsel beyond pharma-cological management including holistic health andlifestyle advice, their ability to apply their knowledge in apractical setting and their methodical approach.

(The pharmacist) has an interest in elderly care so hedoesn’t always go to pharmacological management. Hewould be able to advise outside that as well and… heunderstands intrinsically the importance of not just

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rushing into polypharmacy in elderly patients…. It isquite holistic actually and it’s quite easy for a lot ofdoctors to fall into that trap. So he will just say “Whynot think about this or think about that”. I found thatquite useful (GP3).

Participants also described increased efficiency withinthe general practice in dealing with the repeat prescribingprocess with one manager (M1) reporting a reduction inmedication-related complaints. There was concern, how-ever, from two GPs and a nurse, but without evidence,that lack of involvement might lead to them (or youngerGPs) losing confidence (GP7) and becoming deskilled(GP4), through non-engagement with (repeat) prescribingand loss of continuity of patient care, resulting in reducedknowledge of patients’ current medications. This, however,was not a universal sentiment.

Some GPs are worried about getting deskilled aboutrepeat prescribing, I don’t think it’s any great loss, thepatients are safer as such. I am not bothered as it’stheir safety, patient safety is better (GP3).

EducationSome pharmacists expressed the need for postgraduatetraining, believing that the knowledge they gained froma pharmacy degree and pre-registration year was insuffi-cient to work effectively in general practice.

It's not simply coming out of university and working ina GP surgery - that would be very uncommon, youwould need further training, either through yourpre-reg or after you've done your pre-reg, a diploma orsomething (IP2).

Some pharmacy technicians also expressed a desire forfurther training feeling that they were initially under-equipped for their role.Although pharmacists readily identified the bound-

aries of their expertise, one GP repeatedly expressedconcerns that a pharmacist might act outside of theirprofessional competencies.

The major risk for me, if you get some pharmacistsworking in practices in a clinical role, is them notknowing what they don’t know (GP2).

WorkloadsAll GPs stated that the introduction of a pharmacy teamreduced their involvement in medication management,facilitated more appropriate use of their skills, and

allowed them to increase their patient-facing activityleading to improved relationships.

It’s brilliant having (a pharmacist)… they are afantastic resource but they are also significantlyreducing our workload (GP6).

You are going to be seeing more patients during theday, you get to know your patients better rather thanjust dealing with looking at the computer doingmedications. When you’re doing medication reviewsyou get a lot of patients that are on six, seven, ten plusmedications and arranging that takes a bit of time soyou are not spending that with your patient. You arenot giving your full concentration and it does affectyour patient-doctor relationship (GP7).

(Repeat prescriptions are) a hugely time consumingthing, I think doctors were spending a good half hour,40 minutes [a day] on prescriptions. Equally a lot ofour on-call sessions would be dealing with scriptqueries from patients, them saying they had orderedsomething and it hadn’t arrived that kind of stuff. Soall of that has been skimmed off the top of ourworkload basically, so it is quite a big impact on staffand doctors as well (GP5).

Changes in workloads were not limited to GPs with re-ceptionists, managers and nurses also reporting a reduc-tion. One receptionist (R6) revealed that, prior to thepharmacy teams’ introduction, they were tempted toleave due to their high workload but now believes thatthis has allowed them to increase their focus on individ-ual patient needs rather than medication queries.Although occasionally there were concerns raised over

a high workload, the pharmacy team’s experiences wereoverwhelmingly positive.

Often the demand and the expectations of what oneperson can actually do in the time allocations(are too high) (IP2).

One pharmacy technician (PT1), however, thought thatthe receptionists unnecessarily relied upon them refer-ring queries that they, the receptionists, could have dealtwith themselves.

IntegrationIntroduction of a pharmacy team into general practicesincurred some initial hurdles around building trustingrelationships both within the practice and with sur-rounding community pharmacies but with time andgood communication this group of practices was able toovercome most of the barriers.

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RelationshipsMost participants reported positive and healthy profes-sional and personal relationships between the pharmacyteam and the rest of the practice staff with little hesitationin approaching the team with queries and vice versa.

My relationships with the doctors are very good. I canknock (on the door of ) any doctor at any time anddiscuss a case. For example, if I'm not happy with aparticular medication or I feel not comfortable insigning the prescription I want to speak to the lastdoctor who has actually seen the patient (IP3).

It’s nice, everyone helps each other, things are done ontime. If they (the pharmacy team) make a mistake, theyfix it, so there are never really any issues. Best thingthey’ve done was get them here, I think (laughs) (R6).

I think some of the doctors probably have a closenetworking relationship (with the pharmacists), thepartners for example. We [GP partners] initially metthem and employed them so for example today I had apatient call up, and I sent a quick instant message to[Pharmacy technician] who was upstairs and asked him“What would you suggest as an alternative?” and then 2minutes later the patient could have their prescription,all done and dusted. Equally with [Pharmacist] who isobviously in charge of the whole thing. He is very happyfor us to drop him an email and usually replies veryquickly if you need advice or anything like that, and weall get on very well on a personal level too. He comes toour Christmas parties. So yeah we’ve found that there’salso a lot of informal support as well [as] with theactual day to day business of regenerating prescriptionsfor us and things (GP5).

Pharmacy technicians and receptionists reported aclose working relationship, however, two receptionistsfelt that some members of the pharmacy team were notalways cooperative, being reluctant to take calls comingthrough reception.

I get along with the pharmacy team generally butwhen it comes down to having to crack down onthings, it is a bit like, “I know more than you”, if youget what I mean from their end (R8).

They only wanted to issue and sign, which isunderstandable. They didn’t want to take all the calls,only the calls that were necessary. That was the hardestpart at the beginning but now they are fine (R6).

Participants’ opinions on the relationship with localcommunity pharmacies were mixed. One GP suggested

that the trust level was low (GP6) while one nursedescribed the local pharmacist as really helpful (N1).Examples were provided of the general practice phar-macy team liaising with local community pharmacies.One GP believed that the presence of the team couldimprove the relationship with community pharmacistsand that the practice pharmacist could organise thingsthat would have taken (the GP) hours (GP3). Membersof the pharmacy team were also of the opinion that theirpresence in the general practice had bridged the gap be-tween the two pharmacy settings.Participants mentioned that the pharmacy team were

involved in challenging local pharmacies on unethicalpractices, including inappropriate community pharmacyrepeat prescription requests (N2 & GP2).

The relationship with the local pharmacies is quite aninteresting one. Obviously our pharmacy team hereknow about a lot of tricks that people sometimes pullthat aren’t necessarily that ethical, so [the pharmacist]and his team have been challenging them on thingsthat they don’t think are appropriate whereas we justwould never have known that it was happening sothat’s good. There is sometimes a tendency with localpharmacies to call when they know that the pharmacyteam have left so that they get to talk to the doctorsinstead but we are trying to work our way aroundthat, and say no, you need to call between this timeand this time in the morning to speak about anymedication queries (GP5).

TrustThere was a pervading sentiment from the participantsthat they were all working together as a team to advancepatient care. Practice staff felt that the pharmacy teamhad integrated well and cooperated effectively. Pharma-cists and technicians reported feeling that they had beenaccepted into the team with their views valued and con-tributions appreciated. GPs stated that they trusted thepharmacy team’s ability and this view was reinforced bythe pharmacy team. Both parties, however, noted the im-portance of taking time to build up trust.

It does take time to build a relationship with anybodyin a practice and… I think there is an element of notjust his knowledge as a pharmacist but his practicalapproach to applying that knowledge that makes youtrust him more and that probably encourages morepositive communication (GP3).

A few participants suggested that some GPs exhibitedinitial distrust and a lack of engagement but felt that thiswas no longer an issue in practices in which they had

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worked for a while. Pharmacists and two GPs (GP2& GP3) noted that some GPs might feel threatenedby pharmacists.

I think there would always be a ‘them’ and an ‘us’ in away but it’s sort of merged a bit more now. I can see aboundary, maybe not this surgery so much, but there’sother surgeries that definitely like to keep a clear roledifference. A lot of GPs wouldn’t like to be put on thesame level as pharmacists I’ve noticed. Here’s a bitdifferent, there’s been a relationship longer, but a fewother surgeries where I've worked for the doctors there’sa bit more tension but I think that will go with timeonce they’ve worked together alongside each other a bitmore (PT4).

It’s got to do with personality. It’s the way that GPswork, the pharmacists too. You’ve got to see them aspart of the team and not a competitor (GP2).

One GP compared this perceived threat to professionalboundaries and identity to that observed during theintroduction of nurse practitioners, although theysuggested that this sentiment might be stronger sinceeverything a nurse can do a GP can probably do,whereas anything a pharmacist can do the GP probablycan’t (GP2). One manager believed that prejudices wouldbe a barrier to project expansion.

I think its overcoming prejudices of GPs too, allowingsomeone else to come in and look at their medicationbudget and prescribing and actually accepting theadvice of another clinical professional (M5).

Initial distrust was not limited to GPs with one pharma-cist who visited nursing homes stating that some residen-tial care nurses were very unhappy with their presenceand felt that they (the nurses) were being policed (CP1) bythe pharmacist. One general practice nurse (N3) describedher preference to speak to the GP with medication queriesdespite acknowledging that a pharmacist’s medicationknowledge might be superior to that of a GP. Further-more, another nurse (N6) believed that medication querieswere not the role of a pharmacist and that the GPremained the most appropriate contact.

CommunicationParticipant’s views on communication with the phar-macy team within the practice were mixed. Positive ex-periences included the electronic communication systemthat enabled rapid responses.

It’s really helpful using (the internal online messagingsystem)… I can ask for advice from the pharmacy

team and they’re really good at getting back to you. Sofor me it’s brilliant (N4).

Some members of the practice staff lacked awareness ofthe pharmacy team’s working hours raising concernsabout short and unfixed hours of work that were a bar-rier to effective communication. Some receptionists andmanagers described a failure in communication whenthe pharmacy team suspended the reauthorisation ofprescriptions pending a review but omitted to communi-cate this to the receptionists.Practice meetings were the main method of communi-

cation with many participants discussing their benefit.The pharmacist’s contribution to education within thepractice was identified with many participants mention-ing educational talks delivered by the pharmacy team aswell as instances of individual advice they received fromthe pharmacist. GP1, however, questioned why techni-cians did not regularly attend the practice meetings andthen acknowledged that the pharmacist liaised with therest of the pharmacy team after the meeting.

Next Monday we have the technicians speaking aboutthe electronic prescribing system to just give remindersbecause it’s still quite a new process. You know toptips, we try and keep it as open learning as possible foreveryone (M7).

PracticalitiesPracticalities are defined, by the Oxford Dictionary ofEnglish, as the aspects of a situation that involve the actualdoing or experience of something rather than theories orideas. A number of the practical issues surrounding phar-macists in general practice were identified including thephysical location of the pharmacy team and their hours ofemployment. The cost of employing a pharmacist was bal-anced against savings and improvements both for the gen-eral practice and the NHS, however, patients’ awareness ofthe service was poor.

Location and spaceA strong preference was expressed for the pharmacyteam to be located in house all day (GP6). In practiceswhere the pharmacy team was located on-site, partici-pants reported easy personal access and the ability toask informal questions. Where the pharmacy team waslocated off-site, however, they were viewed as a separateentity (GP7) and aspects of communication were lost.

Having somebody in house, (it) is the corridor talk andit’s difficult to quantify how helpful that is because youcan say, “Can I just pick your brains on something?” Ifhe wasn’t here, in the building, I don’t think I would

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think to ask him. Because he is in the building andbecause I see him… I do think “Oh actually we’ve got apharmacist who can look into this” (GP3).

(Being located off-site has) been more of a challengebecause they (pharmacists) can’t just walk down to myoffice and say “There’s a problem, can you help me?”Communication wise we have phones, our computersystem, we can send instant messages, task, and emailso it’s not an issue. Having said that, when you loseface-to-face contact, there could be moremisunderstanding and delays (M5).

One of the challenges most broadly identified was theshortage of accommodation available to house extramembers of staff. GP5 & GP6 stated that the lack of ac-commodation had directly prevented participation forsome practices in the national Clinical Pharmacists inGeneral Practice Pilot which was due to start.

The physical problems of the buildings andcommunication I think are the main issues (M4).

CostsThe cost of employing a pharmacist was seen to be abarrier, however, participants often counterbalanced thisopinion against savings generated by the pharmacy team,decreased workloads, decreased prescribing errors andimproved patient safety. Participants also described in-creased efficiency in dealing with the repeat prescribingprocess with one manager (M1) reporting a reduction inerrors and medication-related complaints with more pa-tients being called in for medication reviews.

Pharmacists in GP surgeries, I don’t really see it asbeing optional if you consider the patient safety aspect.I think… it can reduce… so many errors (GP3).

Some participants were also of the opinion that the qual-ity of patient service had improved, with reasons varyingfrom a quicker repeat prescription turnaround time tobeing able to offer the level of individual service forwhich GPs did not have time. A nursing home pharma-cist (CP1) noted that their role in monitoring patientshad led to a noticeable reduction in hospital admissions.The pharmacy team’s contribution to the reduction in

practice drug budgets was widely discussed by a broadspectrum of participants with two GPs directly attribut-ing a 20% drop in the practice prescribing budget to thepharmacy team. GP2 raised the point that although thepharmacy team generated significant savings on drug ex-penditure for the NHS the cost of employing the teamwas borne entirely by the practice.

Patients’ accessPatients discussed the relative ease of obtaining an ap-pointment with a pharmacist within the week in com-parison to 1–3 weeks for a GP appointment. Theyreported that long waits for GP appointments causedthem stress and made them feel like a burden to theNHS. Patients were also very pleased with the durationof their appointment comparing a 30-min pharmacistappointment to 10–15 min with their GP and believedthat this allowed for a more beneficial consultation.

I got this appointment quite quick, so, whereas if itwas a doctor I think it was another 2 weeks orsomething, which, because it was only to review mymedication I felt that’s quite a long time to wait justfor that, so this is a good way of doing it (PA2).

If 4 years ago I had the opportunity to talk to someonelike the pharmacist about this situation, it could havebeen resolved [then]... The hour that I had in twomeetings with the pharmacist was more useful thantens of appointments that I had with my GP (PA4).

Many patients expressed a strong willingness to seethe pharmacist again and were happy to book an ap-pointment with the pharmacist rather than the GP oftenstating that they did not want to bother the doctor with“silly things” (PA3) and would rather free up GP appoint-ments for those who might be more deserving.

All about my medication, he went through each andevery one of them and he agreed what I should be onand what I should be told about, he agreed with mostof them except for this warfarin. He gave mealternatives and he wrote it down… To get somebodyto talk to about my medication when there’s seriouspeople out there that need attending and doctors aregiving their time for me to sort my little problem out,you know, whereas if you’ve got somebody like thepharmacist, if you rung up to speak to him and he cansort it out (PA3).

One patient, however, expressed concerns that as theservice becomes more established, appointments willhave to be shortened due to increased demand. Anotherexpressed preference for an out-of-hours appointment.

The cynical view is that once it gets introduced andadopted, because it’s a popular move and if morepeople find that they need that, so they all pile in andyou get one pharmacist here and everybody wants toknow a bit more about their drugs. So if they’re givenfree access to him, he’ll be as busy as the doctor, if notbusier (PA5).

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Patients’ awareness of the presence of a pharmacistwithin the practice was low with some failing to realisethat they had seen a pharmacist even when questionedpost-consultation, often assuming the interviewers werereferring to their community pharmacist.

I’ve never seen the pharmacist here. Oh, this is thepharmacist? Absolutely excellent, but I’ve seen thisgentleman twice… I just made an appointment, Ithought, you know I was seeing one of the doctorsand I said to him I’ve never seen you before, are you anew doctor, and he said “No, no”, he said “I’m apharmacist” and he explained to me. I have no ideawhy they decided, I suppose they decided here,that I was to see a pharmacist because it was moreappropriate because I’m old, I take about twelve kindsof medicines (PA7).

One patient (PA3) felt that the service was under-publicised and expressed concerns that there was nomention of the pharmacist in any communication theyreceived from the practice.

And you say he’s been here a long time? How come henever appears in any of the paperwork or letters oranything? Because, you know, some letters we get fromthe surgery and they’ve got all these doctors’ names onit and all that, right? But the pharmacist’s name’s noton it (PA3).

GP3 suggested that the potential inability of patients todistinguish between a pharmacist and a doctor was achallenge due to differing skillsets. GP6 described beingupset that patients do not take the initiative to visit acommunity pharmacy to treat minor ailments and sug-gested that the message doesn’t get through even thoughthey can be far better treated by a pharmacist who isfantastic at referring people.

DiscussionOur findings relate to the experiences of the key stake-holders in the Ealing GP Federation where pharmacyservices have been provided for several years. The modelused by this group of practices is possibly unique inemploying pharmacy technicians to undertake repeatprescribing duties but findings could still be transferableto other sites and models nationally and internationally.Experiences were generally positive and included appre-ciation of pharmacists’ knowledge of medicines, educa-tional contribution to the practice and their methodicalapproach to tasks. Receptionists reported increased effi-ciency, decreased workload, decreased medicines relatedcomplaints and a safer repeat prescription process underthe direction of a pharmacist. GPs spoke of decreased

workloads and more time for patients, resulting in im-proved relationships. Pharmacists talked about increasedjob satisfaction and a strong understanding of compe-tencies and boundaries with some requesting furthertraining. There were, however, a few areas that could beimproved, including role definition, communication pro-cesses, patients’ awareness of services, co-location ofpharmacists and general practice staff, and full-time ac-cess to pharmaceutical services.Mossialos et al. [19] reported a lack of policy-relevant

evidence to support the expansion of the traditional roleof community pharmacists and suggested that the adop-tion of patient-centred responsibilities might be justifiedby challenges to the health system such as workforceshortages, an ageing population and increased demandfor services. Ours is the first research of its kind in theUK. It addresses the expansion of pharmacists’ roles intogeneral practice and reports findings that pre-empt anyto come from pilot sites because of the pre-existingnature of the services studied. In essence, it provides asnapshot into what the future might look like and howthe pilot sites could evolve in time. It also enables identi-fication of avoidable pitfalls. Our study provides someinsight into the employment of pharmacists in generalpractice that can feed into future formal evaluations andinform policy development. Our research is also uniquein the inclusion of all stakeholders, including patients, inthe general practice environment. This allowed for abroad range of experiences from a variety of partici-pants, enabling the findings to be extrapolated to similargeneral practice situations. Other strengths include thesemi-structured interview technique which enabled par-ticipants to take the lead in interviews to discuss issuesof importance to them. Rigour was ensured by the useof multiple researchers (interviewers and analysts), peerdebriefing regarding interviews and developing analyticalunderstandings and regular group meetings to developconsensus on codes, categories and themes.Limitations include the small number of participants

in some stakeholder groups, especially the patients, andthe brevity of some interviews due to time constraints ofthe participants. This work needs to be repeated withlarger groups from a variety of practices nationwide orin practices that use very different models of pharma-cists’ involvement.

Role development within multi-disciplinary teamsThere is a growing body of literature, mostly fromoverseas, about the integration of pharmacists into pri-mary care teams [11, 12, 20, 21]. Much of the reportedwork focuses on professional role development andidentity within multi-disciplinary teams and mirrorsmany of the findings of our study around role definitionand inter-professional understanding, expectations and

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responsibilities. Farrell et al., as part of their IMPACT(Integrating Family Medicine and Pharmacy to AdvancePrimary Care Therapeutics) project in Ontario, Canada,implemented a mentorship scheme to reduce the stressof adapting to new roles and to promote professional de-velopment [22, 23]. In 2013, they produced guidelinesfor the integration of pharmacists into primary careteams with practical recommendations similar to ours.We suggest that there might be valuable lessons fromthis work for UK health professionals involved in the in-tegration of pharmacists into general practice, particu-larly the demonstration of leadership and vision, and thedevelopment of practice support networks. Luetsch andRowett [24] showed in Australia that inter-professionalcommunication skills training “enhanced professionalidentity, credibility and the ability to build a collabora-tive working relationship with other health profes-sionals” and improved role satisfaction for pharmacists.Some of the participants in our study hinted at profes-sional boundary and identity issues with commentsabout ‘knowing limitations’ and ‘deskilling’. Inter- andintra-disciplinary boundaries (between and within pro-fessions) have been identified by many researchers asbarriers to integrated patient care delivery by multi-disciplinary teams [25–28]. Collaboration is affected by“attempts to defend existing boundaries, specialisedknowledge, and pre-existent practices” (Liberati p 32)and, we would add, discipline-specific professionalidentities. Bardet et al. [29] identified the key elements toinitiating collaborative practices as “trust, interdepend-ence, perceptions and expectations about the other health-care professionals, skills, interest for collaborative practice,role definition and communication” (p612). According toLiberati [26], evidence of how multi-disciplinary teams de-velop and function, including the social factors that influ-ence knowledge and practice integration is still limited(p32), and, if issues of professional boundaries and iden-tities are not addressed, healthcare practitioners will fallback on their formal roles rather than developing newways of working together (p38).Given that we have reported in our study that it takes

time to build trusting professional relationships, we sug-gest that the strengthening of inter-professional commu-nication skills training at both undergraduate andpostgraduate levels for all multidisciplinary team mem-bers followed up with mentorship in general practicecould help break down initial barriers and trust issuesmore quickly. Since our research was conducted, theCentre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE –funded by Health Education England and hosted by TheUniversity of Manchester) has developed a range of clin-ical programmes and study days for pharmacists andpharmacy technicians. Similarly, the Royal College ofGeneral Practitioners (RCGP) has endorsed localised

general practitioner/pharmacist/patient joint-workingstrategies. While we applaud these initiatives we suggestthat more could be done around inter-professional edu-cation involving all members of general practice teamsand including patients.More recently (2016) the Royal Pharmaceutical Society

has produced The Ultimate Guide for PharmacistsWorking in GP Practices. It includes person spe-cifications and job descriptions, business cases, practicalguidance (for example indemnity and insurance, usingIT systems and consultation skills), relevant legal andregulatory frameworks, managing and optimising medi-cines, and professional and clinical guidance [30]. Thisresource together with our findings and recommenda-tions below provide useful guidance and insight forpharmacists and general practices venturing into thistype of partnership.

Patients’ awareness of pharmacy servicesThere is very little contemporary knowledge and qualita-tive data on patients’ awareness and views of receivingpharmaceutical services in general practice in the UKand even less on their information needs. Limited evi-dence, including from this study, suggests a lack of pub-lic awareness about the level of expertise of pharmacistsand the range of services already provided [5, 31, 32].NHS, Department of Health and RPS policy statementsand strategic directives over the past decade have all fo-cussed on building on the strengths of pharmacy and de-livering improvements in and extension of pharmaceuticalservices. Thus there is a mismatch between the thrust ofpolicy development and strategic directives [33, 34], ser-vice design and delivery [2] and public understanding.Pharmacy in England: Building on strengths – deliveringthe future (2008) called for wider public understanding ofthe breadth of services, including a mass communicationsprogramme and mapping of target audiences. We suggestthat this work is sorely needed and long overdue.

RecommendationsThe following recommendations are made:

� Develop clear definitions of roles and basic duties,even if they are flexible enough to allow for furtherdevelopment, and provide induction and trainingneeds analyses for new staff members and constantrole reminders at regular meetings of all staff members

� Allow time for multi-disciplinary team building,including with surrounding community pharmacists,and the development of trust and leadership

� Establish reliable means of communication – email,telephone, electronic management systems – thatinclude documentation of activities and decisions

Ryan et al. BMC Health Services Research (2018) 18:234 Page 11 of 13

� Ideally, provide full-time, on-site pharmacy servicesor at least regular hours with strategies to preventdeskilling of other health professionals

� Work with patients on their information needsabout the pharmacy services provided and the mostappropriate health professional to consult.

Further research is required on the different models ofincorporating pharmacists, technicians and pharmacyservices into general practice. Work is needed on phar-macy intra-professional boundaries, especially the rela-tionships between community pharmacy and generalpractice personnel. Further work is also required withpatients about their preferences for receiving these ser-vices, their concerns and information needs.

ConclusionsAlthough the integration of pharmacists into generalpractice is not entirely new there are no recently pub-lished UK evaluations of the services provided or thevarious models in existence. The NHS England ClinicalPharmacists in General Practice Pilot is currently beingimplemented (and further rolled-out) so while we awaitevaluations, projects like the one reported here will becrucial in providing guidance for integration of pharma-ceutical services into primary care, service improvementand expansion, future policy development and the edu-cation of health practitioners. In addition, if patients areto benefit from collaborations like this, they need to beinvolved in service design and public education. Further-more, general practitioners will need to be vocal aboutthe advantages and their support for pharmaceutical ser-vice inclusion in the general practice team.

Additional file

Additional file 1: Interview guides including indicative questions forpharmacists, general practitioners, managers, nurses, receptionists andpatients. (DOCX 16 kb)

AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank all participants for taking the time to talk to us, theUniversity of Reading for hosting the research and Reading School of PharmacyMPharm students for data collection: Mohammed Azim, Kewel Bassi, Jade Chan,Diljinder Chitra, Raihaan Haq, Hannah Green, Riyan Iqbal, Anika Kadir, KavitaPatel, Nafisah Rahman, Rashed Rahman, and Shobana Srikumar.

FundingThis research received no specific grant from any funding agency in thepublic, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Availability of data and materialsThe datasets generated and analysed during the current study are notpublicly available because that would compromise participants’ anonymityand the researchers are still publishing findings. Reasonable requests forinformation, however, can be made to the corresponding author.

Authors’ contributionsKR, NP and WL contributed to the study concept and design, analysis andinterpretation of data and writing of the manuscript. GS and HP wereinvolved in study design and recruitment of participants. Students listed in theacknowledgements collected the data. HAE contributed to the integration andinterpretation of the data. All authors have approved the manuscript.

Ethics approval and consent to participateThis study was approved by the School of Pharmacy Research EthicsCommittee, University of Reading and the NHS Ealing Clinical CommissioningGroup. All participants signed an informed consent form.

Consent for publicationNot applicable.

Competing interestsThe authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s NoteSpringer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims inpublished maps and institutional affiliations.

Author details1School of Pharmacy, University of Reading, Whiteknights Campus, PO Box226, Reading RG6 6AP, UK. 2Ealing GP Federation, 179C Bilton Road, Perivale,Greenford, Middlesex UB6 7HQ, UK. 3School of Pharmacy, Faculty of MedicalSciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK.

Received: 10 October 2017 Accepted: 22 March 2018

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