Key stakeholder's attitudes towards the professional accountabilities and responsibilities of newly qualified Pharmacist Independent Prescribers (IPs) in England and enablers to implementation at scale?

Abstract

Background: Independent prescribing is set to expand amongst community pharmacists in England in the next few years. This study aims to explore the different accountabilities and responsibilities associated with independent prescribing compared to more traditional pharmacist roles.

Objective: To inform commissioning frameworks that will allow independent prescribing by community pharmacists to be commissioned safely and appropriately at scale.

Design/methodology: A series of qualitative semi-structured interviews were undertaken with key stakeholders. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis, and over-arching themes developed from emergent findings.

Conclusions: This study identified three themes, supported by twelve sub-themes, associated with pharmacist independent prescribing being viewed positively. Those three themes were 'self', 'environmen't and 'competence'. Whilst pharmacists are well placed through their initial education and training to undertake a prescribing role, we found that there are perceived differences in responsibility between a prescribing and a non-prescribing role, attitude towards risk and the training and support needed to adapt to those changes. These differences are explored leading to a series of overarching themes and recommendations, including that ongoing support is critical and should be built into commissioning frameworks, that newly qualified prescribers need to start prescribing immediately after qualifying and that experiential learning should be built into all training programmes.