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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of ownership of community pharmacies on the perception of organizational identity and its relationships with organizational performance.

A survey was carried out on a sample of pharmacists working in community pharmacies in Portugal. The sample comprised 1,369 pharmacists, of whom 51 percent were owner-managers. Measures of pharmacies’ normative (community health oriented) and utilitarian (business oriented) identities, identity strength (clear and unifying), substantive (stockholder focused) and symbolic (society focused) performance were included.

Both owners and employed pharmacists rated the normative identity of pharmacies higher than the utilitarian identity. Compared with employed pharmacists, owners perceive a lower level of utilitarian identity, the same level of normative identity, and higher levels of identity strength. Normative identity and identity strength predicted symbolic performance. Normative and utilitarian identities and identity strength predicted substantive performance. The relationship between utilitarian identity and substantive performance was significant among owner pharmacists but not among employed pharmacists.

The limitations include the use of perceptive measures and the focus on the individual level of analysis.

In order to improve pharmacies’ performance, pharmacists who manage community pharmacies are challenged to reconcile tensions arising from the co-existence of business and community health identities and from their own agency (self-serving) and stewardship (altruistic) motives.

This study draws on institutional, identity and stewardship theories to understand how pharmacists, owners and employees, view the identity of community pharmacies and how identity relates to organizational performance.

This study explores nurses' views as to whether they see community pharmacists as “entrepreneurial” and what this might mean for working together in primary care. Pharmacists are expected to fully integrate with their colleagues – particularly nurses – under the New Zealand health policy. Yet, there is scarce literature that examines multidisciplinary teamwork and integration through an entrepreneurial identity lens. This is particularly important since around the world, including New Zealand, community pharmacies are small businesses.

This was an exploratory qualitative study. A total of 18 semi-structured interviews were conducted with nurses from primary care, nursing professional bodies and academics from nursing schools. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Coding was undertaken through general inductive thematic analysis.

In total three key themes emerged through analysis: the entrepreneurial profile of the community pharmacist, the lack of entrepreneurship across the profession, and the role identity and value that community pharmacists hold, as viewed by nurses. There appeared to be pockets of entrepreneurship in community pharmacy; nurses did not express a blanket label of entrepreneurship across the whole sector. Nurses also discussed several forms of entrepreneurship including commercial-oriented, clinical and social entrepreneurship. The social entrepreneurship identity of community pharmacists sat most comfortably with nurse participants. Overall, nurses appeared to value community pharmacists but felt that they did not fully understand the roles that this profession took on.

This paper contributes to the academic literature by identifying three domains of entrepreneurship relevant to community pharmacy as well as multi-level barriers that will need to be jointly tackled by professional bodies and policy-makers. Improving nurses' and other healthcare professionals' knowledge of community pharmacists' role and expertise is also likely to facilitate better inter-professional integration.

There is scarce literature that attempts to understand how entrepreneurial identity plays out in health organisation and management. This study adds to the knowledge base of factors influencing integration in healthcare.

The aim of this paper is to report on the findings of a systematic literature review‐seeking to elicit existing evidence of the nature of organisational culture in community pharmacy organisations.

This review takes a novel approach to systematically identifying and synthesising the peer‐reviewed research literature pertaining to organisational culture in this setting, its antecedents and outcomes.

The review provides an overview of the scope of and research methods used in the identified literature, together with a narrative synthesis of its findings, framed within five dimensions of organisational culture: the professional‐business role dichotomy; workload, management style, social support and autonomy; professional culture; attitudes to change and innovation; and entrepreneurial orientation.

There is a need for more detailed and holistic exploration of organisational culture in community pharmacy, using a greater diversity of research methods and a greater focus on patient‐related outcomes.

This paper demonstrates that, whilst little research has explicitly investigated organisational culture in this context, there exists a range of evidence describing aspects of that culture, some of the environmental and organisational factors helping to shape it, and its impact on the pharmacy workforce, services delivered and business outcomes. It highlights the importance of the business‐professional role dichotomy in community pharmacy; the influence of individual pharmacists' characteristics and organisational setting; and the impact on pharmacists' wellbeing and job satisfaction and the services delivered. It provides less evidence of the impact of organisational culture on the quality and safety of service provision.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the mental health literacy (MHL) of British community pharmacists.

A survey instrument was sent by facsimile to a random sample of community pharmacists in England, Scotland and Wales. The survey instrument contained items concerning recognition of the symptoms of depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, the helpfulness of a range of interventions, mental health stigma and the degree of comfort providing pharmaceutical care to people with mental health problems.

Among community pharmacists (n=329) symptom recognition was high for depression but lower for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Pharmacists showed a preference for evidence-based interventions and support for psychological therapies and physical activity for all three mental health problems. Pharmacists expressed less comfort providing pharmacy services to people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and depression than cardiovascular disease. Mental health stigma was higher for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder than depression, with many pharmacists holding misperceptions about schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

The study findings indicate the need for enhanced mental health content in the undergraduate pharmacy curriculum which should challenge misperceptions of mental illness.

This is the first study to investigate the MHL of British community pharmacists.

The New Zealand Pharmacy Action Plan 2016–20 acknowledges the young, highly qualified pharmacist workforce, and seeks to address pharmacist underutilisation in the wider health setting. Anecdotal evidence suggests many recently qualified pharmacists are dissatisfied with the profession. Therefore, those completing BPharm programs after 2002, who had left or were seriously considering leaving the New Zealand pharmacy profession, were invited to comment on future-focused pharmacy documents, and the current direction of pharmacy in New Zealand.

An online questionnaire was open December 2018 to February 2019. Recruitment occurred via e-mail lists of universities and professional organisations, print and social media, and word-of-mouth. Free-text responses were thematically analysed using a general inductive approach.

From the 328 analysable surveys received, 172 respondents commented on the documents and/or direction of the pharmacy profession. Views were mixed. Overarching document-related themes were positive direction, but concern over achievability, the lack of funding details, lack of implementation, their benefits for pharmacists and the public, and ability to bring about change and secure a future for the profession. Overall pharmacy was considered an unattractive profession needing to change.

This study highlights dissatisfied recent BPharm graduates agree with the vision in the documents but do not see progress towards achieving the vision occurring, leading to frustration and exit in some cases. Policymakers should be aware of these views as considerable resource goes into their development.

Organisational culture (OC) shapes individuals’ perceptions and experiences of work. However, no instrument capable of measuring specific aspects of OC in community pharmacy exists. The purpose of this paper is to report the development and validation of an instrument to measure OC in community pharmacy in Great Britain (GB), and conduct a preliminary analysis of data collected using it.

Instrument development comprised three stages: Stage I: 12 qualitative interviews and relevant literature informed instrument design; Stage II: 30 cognitive interviews assessed content validity; and Stage III: a cross-sectional survey mailed to 1,000 community pharmacists in GB, with factor analysis for instrument validation. Statistical analysis investigated how community pharmacists perceived OC in their place of work.

Factor analysis produced an instrument containing 60 items across five OC dimensions – business and work configuration, social relationships, personal and professional development, skills utilisation, and environment and structures. Internal reliability for the dimensions was high (0.84 to 0.95); item-total correlations were adequate (r=0.46 to r=0.76). Based on 209 responses, analysis suggests different OCs in community pharmacy, with some community pharmacists viewing the environment in which they worked as having a higher frequency of aspects related to patient contact and safety than others. Since these aspects are important for providing high healthcare standards, it is likely that differences in OC may be linked to different healthcare outcomes.

This newly developed and validated instrument to measure OC in community pharmacy can be used to benchmark existing OC across different pharmacies and design interventions for triggering change to improve outcomes for community pharmacists and patients.

Against a backdrop of concerns regarding the quality and equity of the final practice-based pre-registration training year, the purpose of this paper is to examine how robust and equitable current education and training arrangements in Great Britain are in preparing newly qualified pharmacists (NQPs) for practice.

In addition to considering relevant regulator, policy and research literature, this paper presents findings from a longitudinal qualitative study that tracked 20 pharmacy trainees and their tutors during pre-registration training and early registered practice. Trainees were interviewed four times over a 12-month period; tutors were interviewed twice. Semi-structured interviews explored learning and development, work environment and support received. Interview transcripts were analysed thematically using template analysis.

Currently, there are no requirements tor training pre-registration tutors, or for accreditation or quality assurance of training sites. Longitudinal interview findings showed that community trainees developed knowledge of over-the-counter and less complex, medicines whereas hospital trainees learnt about specialist medicines on ward rotations. Hospital trainees received support from a range of pharmacists, overseen by their tutor and other healthcare professionals. Community trainees generally worked within a small pharmacy team, closely supervised by their tutor, who was usually the sole pharmacist. NQPs were challenged by having full responsibility and accountability as independent practitioners, without formal support mechanisms.

The variability in trainee experience and exposure across settings raises concerns over the robustness and equity of pre-registration training. The lack of formal support mechanisms post-registration may pose risks to patient safety and pharmacists’ well-being.

Research on patient-centred professionalism in pharmacy is scarce compared with other health professions and in particular with pharmacists early in their careers. The purpose of this paper is to explore patient-centred professionalism in early career pharmacists and to describe reported behaviours.

This study explored patient-centred professional values and reported behaviours, taking a qualitative approach. In all, 53 early-career pharmacists, pharmacy tutors and pharmacy support staff, practising in community and hospital pharmacy in England took part; the concept of patient-centred professionalism was explored through focus group interviews and the critical incident technique was used to elicit real-life examples of professionalism in practice.

Triangulation of the data revealed three constructs of pharmacy patient-centred professionalism: being professionally competent, having ethical values and being a good communicator.

It is not known whether our participants’ perspectives reflect those of all pharmacists in the early stages of their careers. The data provide meaning for the concept of patient-centred professionalism. The work could be extended by developing a framework for wider application. Patient-centred professionalism in pharmacy needs further investigation from the patient perspective.

The findings have implications for pharmacy practice and education, particularly around increased interaction with patients.

The data contribute to a topic of importance to patients and in relation to UK health policy, which allocates more directly clinical roles to pharmacists, which go beyond the dispensing and supply of medicines.

The methods included a novel application of the critical incident technique, which generated empirical evidence on a previously under-researched topic.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether and how much patients would be willing to pay for diabetes disease state management (DSM) services in community pharmacies, and also to determine the relationships between willingness to pay (WTP) and different clinical/socio/demographic characteristics of patients.

A sample of 130 diabetic patients recruited from 14 pharmacies across Sydney, Australia completed self‐administered questionnaires. SPSS 16.0 was used to assess WTP in four scenarios (50 and 100 percent improvement in diabetes control after a 30 minute initial and 30 minute follow‐up consultation, respectively). Descriptive and inferential statistical techniques (regression) were used to analyse data.

Patients are willing to pay a median of AUS$30 for 50 percent improvement and AUS$40 for 100 percent improvement per 30 minute initial consultation, and AUS$20 for 50 percent improvement and AUS$30 for 100 percent improvement per 30 minute follow‐up consultation. Although results varied across scenarios, WTP generally increased when: patients' income is greater than AUS$150,000; frequency of patients' diabetes‐related hospitalizations is between 2 and 4; and patients' perceptions of pharmacists' ability are higher. The remainder of the variables tested are not significantly associated with WTP.

The findings demonstrate that most patients are willing to pay for diabetes DSM services in community pharmacies, and there is a great opportunity for pharmacies to expand their clinical services in this area.

The key contribution to the literature is the data relating to the willingness of Australian diabetic patients to pay for pharmacy‐delivered disease management support, and how this varies across people with different clinical/socio/demographic characteristics.

The substitution of generic prescription medicines for branded medicines is being practiced in most westernised countries, with evidence of a strong focus on evaluating and monitoring its economic impacts. In contrast, the purpose of this paper is to explore the generic substitution experience of customers and pharmacists in a pharmacy practice setting.

The study applied a phenomenological method using the narrative inquiry technique combined with critical event analysis, in order to understand the generic medicine experience as perceived by customers and pharmacists as key substitution actors. Interviews were conducted with 15 pharmacists and 30 customers in Australia, Finland and Italy, using a narrative inquiry technique combined with critical events and metaphors.

The findings show that customers, with poor awareness of generic prescription medicine when offered as a substitute, were likely to become confused and suspicious. Pharmacists related how they felt challenged by having to facilitate generic substitution by educating unaware customers, in isolation from both the prescribing doctor and the government/insurer. They also experienced frustration due to the mistrust and annoyance their customers displayed.

The findings suggest that to increase generic substitution, open dialogue is paramount between all the participants of this service network, along with the development of targeted promotional materials.

Little is known about how customers and pharmacists experience the service phenomenon of generic medicine substitution. This paper explores how the key actors at the point of substitution make sense of the process. Additionally, the methodology provides a technique for obtaining a deeper understanding of both the customer and pharmacist experience of generic medicine, along with insights into how the uptake of generic medicine might be improved.