Assessing the feasibility of a pharmaceutical care complexity tool
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Developing and assessing the feasibility of a pharmaceutical care complexity screening tool to aid the targeted delivery of patient focussed clinical pharmacy services in hospital
IRAS ID
261401
Contact name
Penny Lewis
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Manchester
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N/A, N/A
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 4 months, 30 days
Research summary
Pharmacy services aim for each patient to be reviewed daily by clinical pharmacists, Monday to Friday. However, current financial pressures within the NHS mean that departments are under pressure to do “more for less” and thus not all patients can be reviewed daily. Though not a problem for all, for some this gap in pharmaceutical care provision may have deleterious consequences. Therefore, the ability to accurately screen and identify those patients who need the greatest input would be of great benefit, enabling appropriate allocation of costly staff resources. Other healthcare professions, notably in nursing, have invested in developing tools that classify the intensity of care patient need, ensuring that patients are seen by the right staff, with the right skills, in the right place. There have also been attempts within some hospitals to implement locally developed pharmaceutical care screening tools, but these have not been methodically formulated for routine use and there is a lack of agreement as to what such tools should comprise. Thus, the overall aim of this study is to develop a screening tool which can be used by the hospital pharmacy team to triage new patient admissions according to the complexity of their pharmaceutical needs. It is hoped that this tool will improve patient safety, staff workload efficiency, planning and use of resources. This study consists of multiple phases: phase 1 and 2 have already been completed and included a national survey (phase 1) distributed to UK chief pharmacists to identify existing prioritisation and/or complexity tools and processes, and two Delphi studies (phase 2) that were conducted to develop the Adult Complexity Tool for Pharmaceutical Care (ACTPC). In phase 3, which concerns this ethics application, a prospective observational study in the Acute Medical Units of 3 NHS hospitals before and after the implementation of the tool will be carried out. This phase aims to assess the feasibility and practicality of the ACTPC tools.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Sheffield Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/YH/0285
Date of REC Opinion
28 Aug 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion