The PDA has long since been telling anyone who would listen about the abuse of pharmacists by managers hell-bent on achieving MUR targets. Now a recently published piece of scientific research started six years ago has bolstered its view.
Since the inception of Medicines Use Reviews (MURs), reports from PDA members have indicated that too many employers are applying inappropriate pressure to drive MUR delivery by pharmacists.
As powerful as the PDA evidence was, there was a consensus that academic research would provide the opportunity to analyse the reported issues thoroughly and scientifically.
A carefully constructed range of survey questions was designed and distributed to 9,000 community pharmacist members of the PDAU in November 2010. The survey returns were analysed and published by Dr Gavin Dick of Kent University Business School.
The survey measured pharmacists’ perceptions of the management support they receive, their feelings of commitment to their organisations, their experiences of bullying behaviours, the degree of emotional strain/stress they experience and the likelihood of leaving the organisation. The survey also included a new measure called ‘MUR Strain’ which was designed to capture pharmacists’ experiences of changes in the workplace environment due to MURs.
The results show that a ‘Lack of Management Support’ causes a 60% worsening of the strain of MUR workloads, part of which is due to bullying. The analysis concluded that bullying tactics to achieve MURs are at best tolerated by employing organisations and at worst are being routinely used to push pharmacists to achieve MUR targets.
Overall, the results portray non-supportive environments and adverse working conditions. These are not conducive to pharmacists autonomously utilizing their unique professional skills to optimise medicines use for patients, via the undertaking of MURs.
The combined effect of the variables analysed is an overall 61% increase in pharmacists wanting to quit their jobs. However, since the results were derived from pharmacists working for a number of different employers across the community pharmacy sector, a pharmacist’s experiences may not be so different if he/she was to leave to work elsewhere in community pharmacy.
We have placed a full report on the findings of the research of Dr Gavin Dick, Kent Business School, with commentary from Hospital Pharmacist and PDA Union Representative Andrew Jukes, on the news section of our website here
PDAU General Secretary John Murphy said “Six years later and we’re still experiencing the same issues. The PDAU has continuously raised these issues with the GPhC, employers and the wider pharmacy profession. Feedback from our members, the results of the patient safety survey in early 2016 and the response to articles published in the Guardian in April this year demonstrated there is still a problem. We’re now lobbying the health select committee and talking to the press about the GPhC’s ongoing failure to meaningfully address these issues.”
The full academic paper can be found by clicking here