As well having knowledge about medicines and keeping up to date, an ability to work with information sources was seen as important for pharmacists. This included disseminating new pieces of information that they came across, as described by this hospital doctor:
...they’re also...exceptional at you know reading the evidence base and then saying, ‘we should be using this drug or that drug’ depending on, or ‘there’s a new licence for this’
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and she’s very good at information gathering and information distribution. (Hospital doctor B)
Primary care pharmacists in a stage one interview recalled work they had done in the past which involved compiling information, in this example, to produce a set of guidelines and present these to the PCT management board. To do this it was necessary to have the ability to work with large volumes of information and also to communicate it clearly to others.
PCP A: ...let’s say you come out with guidelines on...Herceptin, for example, they need to know breast cancer inside and out...
PCP B: ...if we had to go to board with Herceptin...then it’s knowing where to look for that information, doing your literature reviews, making sure you’ve got the evidence behind it...do like online searches...(Primary care pharmacist group interview 1)
Pharmacists in this study also reported that they prepared bulletins to keep other staff up to date and guidelines which might be used in policies for the funding of medicines. They also
contribute to formularies, which specify which products should be prescribed, and also to patient group directions, which set out protocols for a specified conditions and medicines that are used in their treatment. Pharmacists in two stage one group interviews associated MI and primary care-based pharmacists in particular as being good at condensing large amounts of information into written summaries:
HP L: I think they have a lot of summarising skills cos they’ve got to take a lot of information and put a concise answer together, so their English skills are better than a lot of the other pharmacists. (persona 03)
PCP A: ...that ability to take the information up and to condense it down...we all have that ability to go through the literature...(Primary care pharmacist group interview 1)
Lastly, in terms of dealing with queries, finding additional information when the limits of their own knowledge was reached was seen as an important aspect of pharmacists’ work:
...I don’t profess or claim to know everything in the BNF or have this amazing kinetic background and knowledge base cos I don’t and I think the key is if you don’t know the answer, to hold your hands up and say ‘I don’t know...I’m sorry’, but then have the skills to be able to go away and look that up and come back…(Hospital pharmacist R)
‘Medicines information’ (MI) is a speciality of hospital pharmacy. Pharmacists working in MI are usually located in an ‘office’ environment (not on a ward or a dispensary) with access to a range of reference sources, and are a point of contact for any medicines-related issue. This
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...if [pharmacists] don’t know a particular aspect of a particular drug they know exactly where to find out about it as well...the first role model I had...was the medicines information bloke...quite a unique character, but he made it his business to know everything, or at least have every source of information that you could possibly need in order to answer queries. (Hospital pharmacist T)
Several pharmacist participants in stage two recognised picture 06 as a MI pharmacist, and some commented on the usefulness of this role:
Definitely we always need this kind of pharmacist who have got all the information…or access to information, studies, evidence based medicine, you know there is a lot of this. (PCT pharmacist C)
This hospital doctor associated pharmacists with medicines reference sources:
...if they’re holding a BNF in their hand, that usually tells me they’re a pharmacist. (Hospital doctor C)
As well as being competent at using reference resources, a willingness to do so was appreciated:
...any MI pharmacist I’ve come across particularly here have just been amazing, in that they’re very friendly, very open and you know, more than happy to help you with anything, and will get you a very good evidence-based answer to the question that you’ve asked…(Hospital pharmacist R)
Well, obviously a very sound scientific background and knowledge of the subject, erm, and willingness to, or an ability to recognise where their knowledge may not be 100% and preparedness to go and look it up or ask somebody…(Hospital doctor D)
…one of the pharmacists...I’d ask them questions…she was brilliant and I used to say to her…’…how does a nebulizer bring down potassium?’...she’d go back and she’d look it up and she’d email me…it was great... (Hospital nurse B)
...acting as a, an adviser and conduit if you like, for specialist information as and when we need it...(Hospital doctor A)
A member of support staff expressed a similar notion, that a good pharmacist would quickly turn to a reference source if they were unsure about a prescription:
[a good pharmacist]...can look at a prescription and...they don’t sit there going, ‘er, er,’ they just go, ‘that’s not right’, and they go straight away and get the BNF and you know look it up and it’s, ‘I’ll do something about it now.’ (Community support staff A)
Several pharmacists who took part in this study seemed to identify strongly with ‘information finding’ work, and highlighted it as something they particularly enjoyed. This hospital pharmacist was undertaking her MI rotation at the time of her interview, and she described dealing with a
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range of enquiries related to medicines, from both staff within the hospital, and outside, typically GPs and community pharmacists.
...you need to...know where to look, what resources to look in for information and provide it in a professional manner, so yeah, very enjoyable...(Hospital pharmacist O)
A community pharmacist recalled the time that she had spent in medicines information in the past, and the second was undertaking her medicines information rotation in hospital at the time the interview was conducted.
...Really enjoyed it...when the consultants or the patients or whoever is ringing you up, you have to know where to find the information and there’s like a sort of core set of books that you need to know and I just knew where to find the information and I liked looking it up and sending it back to them. (Community pharmacist R)