Similarities and differences between the perspectives of healthy living champions and pharmacists on the healthy living pharmacy initiative: a qualitative study

White, S.; Brooks, D.; Hopps, A.

Abstract

The Healthy Living Pharmacy (HLP) initiative has improved public access to health and wellbeing services and increased the quality of services in community pharmacy.1 This appears to be at least partly due to the quality and performance criteria for service provision and trained Healthy Living Champions (HLCs) in each HLP.1 Local Pathfinder sites are contributing to determining how HLPs can best support people to improve their health and wellbeing, and building the evidence base for pharmacy’s contribution to public health. This study aimed to complement this by exploring the perspectives of community pharmacy staff who provide public health services on their experiences of their pharmacy being a HLP, focusing on differences and similarities between the perspectives of HLCs and Pharmacists. A qualitative approach was adopted on the basis of being well-suited to exploring the range and depth of participants’ perspectives.2 Following institutional ethical approval, in-depth digitally recorded interviews were conducted with 18 staff (9 pharmacists, 8 HLCs and 1
technician) from HLPs in Staffordshire. The sample included participants from HLPs of different types (e.g. independents and branches of multiple chains) and locations to represent a broad range of views. Participants were recruited by sending an invitation letter to HLPs followed by telephone contact. The interview guide was developed from the objectives of the study and review of the literature. Key topics included experiences of the process of HLP accreditation and experiences of providing public health services.

Participants were asked open, non-leading questions about these topics, with subsequent questions to clarify or explore responses. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using framework analysis. 2 HLC participants tended to talk about the HLC training in terms of it having increased their skills or confidence in talking to customers about lifestyle issues, whereas pharmacists tended to talk about challenges to completing the training (e.g. time requirements and numbers of staff who needed training). All participants seemed enthusiastic about the HLP initiative and most reported increases in services provided and service users, however, HLCs tended to appear more enthusiastic than pharmacists. HLCs appeared to have principally benefitted by increased empowerment in their new role, whereas pharmacists’ principal benefit appeared to be perceived increase in their professional standing. HLCs and pharmacists both commonly reported most customers appearing unaware of the pharmacy’s HLP status and difficulties relating to time constraints and increased workload. However, some issues were only raised by pharmacists, such as establishing new contacts with local organisations providing health promotion or seeing little evidence of GP surgeries signposting patients to HLPs. Several pharmacists reported that the initiative might benefit from greater local publicity and synchronisation of health promotion campaign activity between HLPs. These findings suggest much support for the HLP initiative, in line with rational findings,1 and that there appear to be significant but different benefits for HLCs and pharmacists. Raising awareness of these benefits among community pharmacy staff is likely to help the national roll-out of the initiative, which in turn may lead to greater awareness of HLP services among customers.

Citation

White, S., Brooks, D., & Hopps, A. (2014, April). Similarities and differences between the perspectives of healthy living champions and pharmacists on the healthy living pharmacy initiative: a qualitative study. Presented at Health Services Research & Pharmacy Practice Conference, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK

• Presentation Conference Type: Speech
• Conference Name: Health Services Research & Pharmacy Practice Conference
• Conference Location: University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK
• Start Date: Apr 3, 2014
• End Date: Apr 4, 2014
• Deposit Date: Jun 12, 2023
• Publisher URL: https://academic.oup.com/ijpp/article/22/Supplement_1/2/6067099