Turning legislation into care: pharmacy services permitted and provided in South Africa

The study aimed to determine the types of pharmacy services lawfully permitted to be offered and provided in the different categories of pharmacies in South Africa.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted using an online self-administered questionnaire sent to all responsible pharmacists (N = 4334) of pharmacies registered in the different categories under the Pharmacy Act 53 of 1974.

A total of 217 responses were received, yielding a response rate of 5.0%. Although the participating pharmacies offer a broad spectrum of services, they do not provide all the public health-oriented services for which they are legally permitted to offer. Consequently, they (>80%) focus on more conventional pharmacy services and services related to patients' pharmaceutical care needs. Furthermore, a larger proportion of community (independent and corporate) (>90%) than private institutional pharmacies (<75%) offered services supporting pharmaceutical care (P = .0001), such as assessing patient compliance (Cramér's V = 0.4), patient follow-up (Cramér's V = 0.4), and providing pharmacist-initiated therapy (Cramér's V = 0.7). Overall, the findings confirmed that the participating pharmacies did not provide the full range of legally permitted services. More specifically, there was limited delivery of public health services in institutional pharmacies, whereas independent and corporate community pharmacies provided few primary care drug therapy services.

The study highlights an opportunity for pharmacies in South Africa to offer more public health-related services that they are legally permitted to provide. Consequently, the apparently limited provision of these services should be investigated further.