Care Homes Independent Pharmacist Prescriber Study (CHIPPS): Process Evaluation (WRIGHTDU19SF)

Care Homes Independent Pharmacist Prescriber Study1 is a five year research project funded by the National Institute of Health Research, a UK government body, and is designed to estimate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of pharmacist prescribers assuming responsibility for medicines management within care homes.

The project is lead through the University of East Anglia, who work in close partnership with the University of Aberdeen, Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Leeds. The project is supported through the Norfolk CCGs research support network.

Born out of research, which identified that 70% of residents in care homes experience at least one medication error a day,2 the project consists of six work packages.

• Intervention development
• Outcome identification
• Economic evaluation
• Training development
• Feasibility study
• Definitive trial with internal pilot

The Pharmacist Independent Prescribers are responsible for developing and implementing pharmaceutical care plans, authorising monthly repeat prescriptions, care home staff training, supporting medicines ordering and storage processes together with helping staff with medicines administration. Each pharmacist looks after 20 residents for six months and achieves all of this through a weekly 4 hour session working with the home.

Currently within the final phase of the trial and with 2 years left and will created a large amount of quantitative and qualitative data which the PhD student will be expected to contribute to the evaluation of.

The aim of this PhD is to:
• Describe how the intervention was developed, tested, reflected upon and refined through detailed analysis of qualitative data
• Identify the clinical interventions and processes undertaken by the pharmacist prescribers which were related to improvements in resident care through detailed analysis of quantitative data
• Describe the adoption of the service within practice and which elements of the CHIPPS dissemination strategy contributed towards this.

More information:
For more information on the supervisor for this project, please see: https://www.uea.ac.uk/pharmacy/people/profile/d-j-wright
Type of programm: PhD
Start date: October 2019 
Mode of study: Full-time 

Entry Requirements:
Acceptable first degree (please indicate acceptable first degree: Pharmacy. (The standard minimum entry requirement is 2:1).

Please note: Applications are processed as soon as they are received and the project may be filled before the closing date, so early application is advisable.