A Study of Pharmore+: Pharmacy Walk-in Service Pilots

7 Findings from the Workshop

7.1 The workshop included 25 participants from across the five participating NHS Boards (with at least 3 people attending from each pilot), along with participants from Scottish Government and NHS24. Many of the issues raised in the interviews were echoed in the discussion at the workshop (see Annex A for summary), in particular:

• The challenges posed by being a 'pilot' i.e. small scale, short term and perhaps unlikely to be sustained over a longer period, and the need therefore to find a way to "grow your own" staff.
• The importance of developing current training opportunities to encourage multidisciplinary working and learning across disciplines.
• The need for pharmacy to raise awareness amongst health professionals and the general public about the skills and expertise available and making links with local services and organisations to work in collaboration as part of the wider health service.

7.2 The workshop participants suggested the following key recommendations to inform future development:

• Services need to respond to local NHS priorities and be designed around local needs.
• Pharmacies need to be clear about the role/remit for providing generalist services (such as smoking cessation, sexual health, substance misuse) and the potential for specialist services (such as support for out-of-hours).
• Pharmacist roles need to be supported through specialist training, ongoing support and professional development.
• The role of pharmacy technician needs to be considered as part of the range of skills/expertise available with a pharmacy team.
• The essential test of any service development is: Does this benefit the patient? Pharmacy services need to demonstrate their contribution to wider health services though generating evidence of their impact on patient outcomes.