The role of clinical pharmacists in care for people living with dementia in primary care

Pharmacists have always worked in primary care, the community and with GPs. However, there is an evolving role; this is the clinical pharmacist working in primary care. There are plans to employ more clinical pharmacists in the NHS over the next few years. Many people living with dementia, live at home with care provided from their general practice. They often have several health problems and are on several medications. There is potential for a clinical pharmacist to support people living with dementia with their care and medications. However, little research has explored the new role of the clinical pharmacist in this area of practice, and we are not aware of any research to understand how they can help people living with dementia and their carers (family and friends).

We want to start a new research programme focussing on clinical pharmacy in general practice and its potential to support people living with dementia. We aim to understand what support and future work is needed within clinical pharmacy in primary care and dementia care, training needs, and identify future priorities for research.

We propose three linked studies:

1) Review of published research and policy to bring together all the research on this topic. This will provide us with a summary of all the current evidence on this topic. We will also be able to identify what research needs to be done.

2) Speaking with up to 60 people including people living with dementia, family carers, and clinical pharmacists. We will ask questions about the role of a clinical pharmacist in dementia care, how they work with other specialists (such as dementia advisors), individual experiences of working with clinical pharmacists, and ideas about how to better support clinical pharmacists. We will include people from a range of different backgrounds include those from ethnic minority backgrounds and low socioeconomic status.

3) A survey of clinical pharmacists working in general practice; we will ask questions about what they do and their ambitions, their experience of working with people living with dementia and carers, training, career development and support needs.

While we are doing these studies, we will host webinars and online meetings of people working in this area such as clinical pharmacists, GPs, practice nurses, as well as people living with dementia, carers and researchers. This brings together a variety of people to develop a network of those interested in this topic. We will host two workshops to share our learning and learn from others.

At the end of this project, we will have an understanding of what future research needs to be done and develop larger funding applications. Finally, we will have established a network of various people interested in this topic of research.

Amount Awarded: £196,756