Co-Producing a Vision for the Future of Community Pharmacy in England

Supervisory Team:
Dr Matthew Jones, Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology
Prof Margaret Watson, Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology
Dr Piotr Ozieranski, Department of Social & Policy Sciences

This fully funded scholarship is an exciting opportunity to contribute to the future development of pharmaceutical services, whilst also acquiring a range of research skills.

In a time of financial constraints, demographic changes and rapidly developing technology, community pharmacy in England is about to undergo a period of rapid change. However, the outcome of this process is far from certain. Policy makers, professional leaders, other health professionals and pharmacists themselves hold a wide array of different opinions as to how medicines should be supplied, where community pharmacists should work to support the safe and effective use of medicines and what additional roles should be developed. Even different sections of the pharmacy profession often propose differing visions for future priorities, so politicians and policy makers do not receive a consistent message from the sector.

This scholarship therefore aims to develop a coherent vision for the future of community pharmacy services in England. Most importantly, this should address the needs of patients, but success will also require the support of the pharmacy profession, other health professions, commissioners and other stakeholders e.g. patients, public, pharmacy organisations.

It is clear that the future of community pharmacy cannot be considered in isolation, as it inevitably plays a central role in a much larger multidisciplinary team. Therefore, this scholarship will proceed through a series of interrelated phases:
• a policy and evidence review
• interviews or focus groups with key stakeholders to identify their aspirations for community pharmacy
• a series of case studies of innovative pharmacy services to examine ways in which these aspirations might be met
• co-design and knowledge exchange workshops with stakeholders to produce a coherent vision for the future of community pharmacy and related policy recommendations.

Dr Bharat Shah, the sponsor of this scholarship, is keen that it should make a contribution to the development of community pharmacy services. Publication and presentation of the outcomes of each phase (to both academic and non-academic audiences) will therefore be an important component of this project. Dr Shah will provide access to a wide range of influential stakeholders, to assist both the research process and the dissemination of the results.

The student will gain a range of skills, including those related to policy review, qualitative methodologies (which are widely used in health services research), co-design and public engagement. These will be acquired both from appropriate formal training courses in research methodologies and from carrying out research under the guidance of the supervisory team. In addition, a wide range of generic skills training opportunities are available to postgraduate students at the University of Bath: http://www.bath.ac.uk/learningandteaching/rdu/courses/pgskills/.

The supervisory team combines substantial experience of health services research (particularly in the community pharmacy setting) and of the practice of pharmacy, as well as expertise health care policy review.

The student will join the Clinical and Health Research theme in the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, which includes a wide range of expertise and research interests focused on the safe and effective use of medicines. This is an exciting time to join the theme, as following recent strategic appointments it is growing both in size and activity under the leadership of Prof Watson, one of the project supervisors, who is an established PhD supervisor and examiner.

At the end of this scholarship you will have acquired skills to plan and undertake independent research and you will be equipped to follow a variety of different postgraduate career paths.

The Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology is a research intensive department and was ranked in the top three schools of pharmacy in the REF2014 exercise. The University of Bath has recently opened dedicated postgraduate study space in a new building and is developing plans to form a doctoral college. In addition, the University is an Equal Opportunities Employer and the Department is proud to hold an Athena SWAN Bronze Award.

Interview date: afternoon of Thursday 1st December, 2016.

Anticipated start date: January 2017