Dudley Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment: Public views on pharmacy services and options for the future
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The Office of Public Health at Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council commissioned Healthwatch Dudley to undertake research to obtain public views and experiences of pharmacy services in the Dudley borough to feed into the development of a Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA).
A mixed methods approach was used to collect and analyse people’s views and experiences of pharmacy services. A questionnaire survey provided quantitative information on responses to a series of questions. A qualitative component of the research comprised focus group work to get people’s perspectives on pharmacy services in the future. In total 827 people returned a completed or partially completed survey.
Most respondents indicated they frequently used the pharmacy or themselves (76.23%) with fewer people indicating they used it on behalf of someone else they cared for (15.15%), an older person (14.41%) or an infant or young person (5.54%). Respondents were most frequently using a pharmacy near to their home (56.90%), near or at a doctor’s surgery (41.26%).
At the same time, most respondents (89.04%) had visited a pharmacy on a Monday to Friday between 9.00am and 6.00pm. They said the biggest barriers to getting access to services were pharmacies not being open on a Sunday (21.46%) or a Saturday (10.50%). The majority of respondents (51.08%) indicated they visited a pharmacy once a month with others visiting once every two weeks (20.89%) or once a week (15.29%).
The combined figures for respondents who know about and either use or do not use pharmacy services for dispensing a prescription are (87.45%), repeat prescriptions (86.85%), non-prescription medicines (73.45%), general information and advice (71.86%), toiletries (65.29%), advice on medicines (62.24%), help with minor conditions (58.83%), prescription delivery (54.81%) and cosmetics (49.70%).
Pharmacies tended to score highly on environmental measures with respondents indicating that, on the whole, staff were friendly (91.64%), premises were easy to get to (85.73%), accessible (83.27%), providing good information and advice (79.95%), with parking close by (71.96%), a private area for consultations (65.81%) and a range of useful services (50.43%), in a location easy to get to by public transport (56.10%).
Respondents also indicated they trusted the pharmacist’s advice on medicine usage (84.96%), felt it was important to be able to get their advice on prescriptions (81.58%), see a known pharmacist regularly on duty (63.66%), speak to staff without being overheard (62.16%) and be known to the pharmacy (61.91%).