Sections of the MUR assessment
Section 1
Clinical pharmacy and pharmaceutical care
(multiple choice questions)
Section 2
The medicines use review (MUR) service (true/false questions)
Section 3
MUR and prescription intervention case studies
Section 4
Bringing it all together — undertaking the full
MUR process (use of patient data to complete a Department of Health
MUR document) |
CPPE advice
· Read all the information on the website about the assessment before
attempting any of the sections
· Check PC requirements and the reliability of internet connections
before attempting any of the sections
· Read the question and answer options in the assessment carefully
· Use the time given appropriately to access information from reference
sources when required |
One month after going live, around 700 pharmacists had logged onto the
online medicines use review (MUR) competency assessment facility developed
by a project team at the University of Manchester school of pharmacy
and pharmaceutical sciences in collaboration with the Centre for Pharmacy
Postgraduate Education (CPPE). The facility provides an MUR assessment
that has been accredited by the university and developed against the
Department of Health competency framework for the assessment of pharmacists
providing an MUR and prescription intervention (PI) service.
Passing an MUR assessment, whether by using this online format or by
using another available format or style, enables pharmacists to obtain
an MUR certificate that allows them to deliver an MUR and PI service
under the new community pharmacy contractual framework. Jennifer Archer,
assistant director, CPPE, and project manager, comments: “Our direction
from the Department of Health was to provide increased capacity and diversity
for MUR assessments.” Providing an online facility achieves that
goal, she says. She adds that feedback on the assessment facility has
been positive. However, some people have commented that the assessment
was tougher than they thought it would be “but this is an assessment
to deliver a service against competencies under examination conditions”.
The University of Manchester and CPPE assessment is available to sit
free of charge. It has been designed as four separate sections to enable
pharmacists to complete it at their own pace and to have time to reflect
in between each section. All sections must be completed successfully
in order to pass the whole assessment. Paula Hayes, programme design
and support, CPPE, has been involved in establishing the facility. She
says that one month after its launch, 175 pharmacists had passed the
whole assessment and many of the others who had entered the facility
were at various stages of completing it.
Although pharmacists know instantly whether or not they have passed an
individual section, individual pass marks are not provided nor are candidates
told what they have failed on, she says. They may retake any section
they have failed, but a “lock out” period of six days comes
into play on failing a section in order to provide an opportunity for
the individual to reflect on learning needs, plan their continuing professional
development and undertake any self-directed learning.
Giving advice on attempting the assessment, a representative from the
University of Manchester team (who was involved in writing the assessment)
says that pharmacists should do their background work first. She adds
that they should know all the MUR service specifications and regulations
before attempting to answer the questions and make sure they have seen
the MUR form and its contents.
In terms of problems encountered so far, these have mainly been internet
connection and PC problems. Paul Gray, head of technology services, CPPE,
responsible for the electronic format and programming of the assessment,
says that there have been “one or two problems where people have
been using dial-up, for example, and lost their connection part way through
an assessment”. If this happens the candidate is effectively failed
on that particular section and has to resit it after six days. Information
on this problem has been added to the website but “to an extent
[the university and the CPPE] rely on the user having reliable equipment
at their end,” Mr Gray says. PC problems have mainly been with
security and browser settings and Mr Gray recommends that there should
not be a problem if these are left “at normal default settings”.
So what do pharmacists themselves think of the assessment facility? Community
pharmacist Mark Burdon, Lanchester Pharmacy, Co Durham, has passed the
assessment and carried out his first MURs. He says that one of the benefits
of the online assessment facility is that you find out straight away
whether you have passed. However, he says that with this assessment there
is no distance learning pack to read first, as is usually the case with
CPPE assessments, and although pharmacists have a service specification,
they need to use their broader knowledge, such as of clinical governance,
when completing the assessment. He adds that he knows of some pharmacists
in primary care who have failed the assessment a few times and says that
it is the section that addresses the MUR process (section 2) that “catches
most people out”. He advises reading the information provided in
each section and the questions carefully.
Rachel Muxworthy, acting chief pharmacist, Surrey Heath and Woking Primary
Care Trust, has also passed the online assessment. She says that as a
pharmacist working for a PCT and involved in implementing the new pharmacy
contract, she thought it was important to undertake and complete the
assessment herself if she was going to ask her community pharmacist colleagues
to complete it. It is a case of “leading by example”, she
says. It has also enabled her to inform them about, for example, the
structure of the assessment.
In terms of the online assessment itself, Miss Muxworthy says that she
found a couple of the questions in the clinical pharmacy section ambiguous
(section 1) and was unable to view the video clip provided in section
4. However, she points out that viewing the video clip is not essential
to answer the questions and that reading the dialogue may be sufficient.
Miss Muxworthy advises pharmacists to set aside some time to complete
the assessment. She adds that by not having to sit the whole assessment
in one sitting, the University of Manchester and CPPE have “made
it extremely flexible and adapted it to peoples’ needs”.
The use of reference texts is permitted and Miss Muxworthy reminds pharmacists
to have resources such as the service specification, a Drug Tariff and
a British National Formulary to hand before sitting the assessment because
each section must be completed within a set time. Becoming accredited
to deliver an MUR and PI service gives community pharmacists “a
great opportunity to get even more involved in the medicines management
of patients”, she says.
The assessment facility can be found here. Any comments
about the assessment can be addressed to the CPPE, School of Pharmacy,
Coupland 3 Building, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester,
M13 9PL (e-mail info@cppe.man.ac.uk).
|
The
Pharmaceutical Journal