A survey of pharmacy support staff in two PCTs: a feasibility study
Although expanding the role of support staff was identified as a policy objective in the DOH document ‘The Pharmacy Workforce in the New NHS’, our understanding of the support staff workforce is relatively superficial. A locality-based feasibility study on the deployment of support staff has been conducted to test the methodology for a more nationally generalisable study.
Identifying support staff in community pharmacies, data collection options, and an assessment of response rates, are some of the methodological considerations that have been tested. The study has also provided demographic data, information about the education and qualifications of support staff, their views towards training and regulation and career aspirations. A series of focus groups were also held with support staff to collect information on their attitudes towards their work.
| Sponsor | Department of Health |
| Duration | 1 year |
| Start and end dates | August 2003 - July 2004 |
| Funding | £48k |
| Principal Investigator | Karen Hassell and Peter Noyce |
| Project Manager | Tanya Samuels |
| Other researcher | Rachel Mullen and Phillip Shann |