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What do community pharmacists do?: results from a work sampling study in London
James E Davies1, Nicholas Barber, David Taylor
1Department of Practice and Policy, UCL School of Pharmacy, London, UK.
The International Journal of Pharmacy Practice
|January 16, 2014
Summary
Community pharmacists spend most of their time on dispensing tasks, not patient-centered care. This study reveals a gap between desired pharmaceutical services and actual daily practice for pharmacists.
Area of Science:
- Pharmacy Practice Research
- Health Services Research
Background:
- Professional bodies advocate for expanding pharmacists' roles beyond dispensing.
- There is a recognized need to shift towards more patient-care focused pharmaceutical services.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantify the time allocation of community pharmacists in England.
- To describe current pharmacist activities using a work sampling method.
Main Methods:
- Work sampling technique employed in 10 London community pharmacies.
- Trained observers recorded pharmacist activities every minute for 4 hours daily over one week.
- 18 predefined activity codes were used to categorize tasks.
Main Results:
- Pharmacists spent the most time assembling/labelling products (25.2%) and monitoring prescriptions (10.6%).
- Time spent on pharmaceutical services was low (3.2%), less than non-prescription advice (6.6%).
- Over 46% of time was categorized as 'Professional', but dispensing tasks dominated.
Conclusions:
- Community pharmacists' roles remain largely focused on technical dispensing activities.
- Despite efforts to promote patient-centered care, the practice reality shows limited shift in pharmacist time allocation.
- Further research may be needed to understand barriers to role expansion.
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