Aston university's Centre for Evidence-Based Pharmacotherapy (CEBP) has recently been awarded two collaborative grants totalling almost £1.3m to support new projects.
One grant, for £90,000 from the Department of Trade and Industry, has been awarded to the CEBP, together with Adams Healthcare, a specialist manufacturer of pharmaceutical and contamination control products, to investigate systematic ways of identifying likely successful outcomes from clinical trials. The two organisations are now seeking an additional research pharmacist to help with the work (see pA30). The appointment is to be made through the Government's teaching company scheme.
Professor Alain Li Wan Po (professor of clinical pharmaceutics, Aston university) told The Journal on June 27 that there was a need for pharmacists who knew how to conduct systematic reviews so as to get a better assessment of what might work, rather than to pluck ideas out of thin air.
The second, and much larger grant, £1.2m from the West Midlands region of the National Health Service Executive, is shared with Warwick and Coventry universities and will be used for research in primary care.
Professor Li Wan Po said that an example of the type of research that was planned was the identification of areas of irrational prescribing, finding out why people prescribe in the way that they do and then determining ways of getting them to change.
The universities are currently seeking a research fellow to carry the work through (pA31).
The CEBP is also involved with a collaborative project funded by £300,000 from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. This involves producing training booklets and multimedia presentations for postgraduate training in evidence-based pharmacotherapy. Courses can be taken to certificate, diploma or MSc level.
Professor Li Wan Po said that there was currently a shortage of pharmacists trained in the methodologies of evidence-based pharmacotherapy and that this could limit the extent to which the profession was able to capitalise on its growth.
"We have the people, very experienced pharmacists, even with PhDs, but they are not trained in this area and cannot do the work," he said. The "old-fashioned" training of pharmacists, even as recently as five years ago, did not prepare them for the evidence-based assessments of treatments that would be required by clinical governance.
Once a number of people had been properly trained, there would be exponential growth in the area as their knowledge and expertise was passed on, Professor Li Wan Po said.