PJ Online | P&MM: Why practice research is so important

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Prescribing & Medicines Management
Issue no 1, p15
January/February 2003

Features

Why practice research is so important

Practice research is important for members of the Faculty of Prescribing and Medicines Management because it forms an important component of personal, professional and faculty development. Joe Asghar explains

Joe Asghar is an FPMM board member

The changes taking place in health and social care, professions and clinical services mean that patients, the NHS and the public expect service developments to provide effective care and value for money. Developing an evaluative and evidence-based culture within the faculty from an early stage is essential to enable its standing and credibility, and its members, to be developed. FPMM practitioners are at the sharp end of service delivery and are well-placed to examine the processes involved with delivery of care. It is also a means by which we can share and encourage best practice, and inform service development.

The main message is that results must be put into practice effectively. Historically, the NHS has run on "pilot schemes", projects and quasi-research. This has often led to good pieces of work being shelved. An opportunity exists, through the FPMM, to change the culture of practice research by working with, and through, the membership to build on projects and work already completed. The FPMM needs a coherent research strategy that identifies where we are now, where we want to be and how we get there.

Getting started

Any audit or research requires planning and a protocol to guide the process effectively, and to ensure best use of available resources. There are a number of well-recognised steps, of which readers will be aware. However, proposals have other benefits:

• Explaining or clarifying ideas

• Identifying gaps by thinking through processes systematically

• Understanding work that will have to be undertaken

• Considering appropriate methods of evaluation

• Serving as a reminder throughout projects

• Ensuring other partners understand roles/responsibilities clearly

There are also methodological considerations which FPMM members would gain benefit from understanding which include:

• Cost evaluations

• Identifying key audiences

• Working with academic partners

• Necessary flexibility in research

• Asking the right questions

• Project planning

• Understanding pitfalls

Each of these will assist in members becoming more rounded practitioners with spin-off benefits in terms of routine project management.

Current research opportunities

Current opportunities include

• clinical governance activities
• prescribing performance
• linking prescribing to morbidity data
• pharmaceutical services development
• near-patient testing
• patient views and experiences of services
• patient group directions and their use
• area prescribing committee (or equivalent) effectiveness
• pharmaceutical adviser effectiveness
• prison pharmaceutical services
• organisational development
• adverse event reporting
• wasted medicines
• independent/ supplementary prescribing
• repeat dispensing
• developing quality incentive schemes for pharmacists and other prescribers
• workforce planning
• interface issues
• medicines management programmes
• contribution of medicines to public health

Next steps

To move this forward, the FPMM has convened a working group to consider the content of any research strategy. It will also consider how to support members and be provided with development opportunities, and how we can ensure that results are effectively implemented and shared.

One of the aims of the FPMM is to encourage members to participate in practice research that will assist in personal and professional development. It is recognised that there are practical and methodological barriers to members undertaking effective practice research in working environments. Pharmacists have traditionally worked in isolation, which has led to an insular view of practice research. The new NHS requires an evaluative culture to be established across all disciplines. FPMM members have the potential to act as a catalyst for practice research within emerging primary care organisations, and should grasp the opportunities afforded by the current NHS changes.