APPLIED RESEARCH
Staff perceptions and opinions
on workload prioritisation
practices in hospital pharmacy
David Gibson
MPharm MSc
Pharmacy Dept,
Darlington Memorial
Hospital, Darlington
County Durham, UK,
Jan Forlow BPharm
Pharmacy Dept, North
Cumbria University
Hospitals NHS Trust,
Carlisle, UK
Jill Davison BPharm
Pharmacy Dept, City
Hospitals Sunderland,
Sunderland, UK
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES Clinical pharmacy resources are
under significant pressures in modern healthcare
systems and policy recommends that pharmacy
resources are targeted to areas where they will have
greatest impact. This research aims to understand
how pharmacists are prioritising their clinical
workload, their views on the impact of prioritisation
on the patient care they deliver, and what are
the challenges associated with implementing
prioritisation in day-to-day pharmacy practice.
METHODS A survey was distributed to nine
secondary care and two mental health hospital
Trusts’ clinical pharmacy staff in the North East of
England to determine their views and perspectives
on clinical prioritisation for pharmacy. The survey
was undertaken in November 2016 and 207
responses were received from pharmacists and
technicians.
RESULTS Results showed that pharmacy staff
thought prioritisation was important to their
daily work and needed to be flexible dependent
upon the clinical situation. High risk and complex
patients where viewed as being a priority. An
awareness of the individual patients situation and
the wider demands on pharmacy services were also
considerations when prioritising workload.
CONCLUSION This research shows that pharmacy
teams view prioritisation as being more than
highlighting high-risk patients. It also needs to
take into account the situation and environment in
which the pharmacy teams are working. Further
work therefore needs to be done to implement
prioritisation tools to empower pharmacy staff
to interpret priority within the context of the
environment that the clinical pharmacy services
are delivered.
The healthcare environment is changing. 1
Populations are living longer with complex
health issues, and the healthcare resources are not
keeping pace with this change. Health services need
to break down barriers and introduce new care
delivery models while also introducing significant
efficiency savings to improve care. It is now the
norm that acute and mental health trusts have
clinical pharmacy teams, consisting of pharmacists
and technicians, that spend the majority of their
time on wards. These teams have numerous
functions to support patients to optimise their
medication. 2 Looking at productivity and efficiency
within the UK alone, £5 billion of savings could be
made by reducing unwarranted variation by
focusing 80% of pharmacist resource on direct
medicines optimisation, governance and safety. 3
Key messages
What is already known on this subject
• Pharmacy teams need to prioritise their workload
and focus on activities that have the greatest impact
on patient care.
• Various tools have been developed that facilitate the
prioritisation of clinical pharmacy workload
• Prognostic factors have also been developed to
determine the level of clinical priority for a patient
What this study adds
• This research gains an understanding of how
hospital pharmacists and technicians utilise
prioritisation in their clinical practice
• Complexity of hospital environments and situational
awareness are highlighted as key considerations
when pharmacy teams are effectively prioritising
workload.
hospitalpharmacyeurope.com | 2019 | Issue 91 | 17