Supporting pharmacist transition to primary care

Health Education and Improvement Wales Pharmacy (HEIW Pharmacy) has devised a new training programme to support pharmacists who move to work in the GP setting.

The initiative is designed to provide tailored support to these pharmacists who take up these roles with varied prior experience in different settings. As a result, their support needs vary.

The transition programme runs over a 12 month period and provides each pharmacist with 24-days of tutor support from an experienced GP-based pharmacist who is trained for the tutor role.

The programme is centred on the competency based framework for GP-based pharmacists, approved by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. The GP pharmacists on this scheme will undertake a self-assessment against this competency framework at months 3, 6 and 12 and this will be used to inform their training needs.

Other activities will include spending time at their tutor’s pharmacy and in discussion with their designated GP tutor. An e-portfolio is used to document their self-assessments, workplace-based feedback from 360-degree feedback and for recording their tasks and skills.

Aims

The principle aim of this evaluation is to evaluate the transition training programme, identifying strengths and areas for development and exploring whether and how it helps to prepare the pharmacist for their GP-based role.

The specific objectives are:

• to identify participants’ motives moving to the GP setting and their goals for the role.
• to document learning needs across the participants, identifying commonality and difference.
• to explore participants’ views on the tutor support, the e-portfolio and other educational activities and whether this addresses their learning needs.
• to seek the pharmacist tutors’ opinions on the programme, its strengths and limitations and any development needs they may have for the role.