Primary Care Practitioners’ Uptake of a Secondary Care-Based Medicines Information Service in the United Kingdom

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which primary care practitioners (doctors and nurses) use a secondary care-based medicines information service and to discover how nonusers of the service answer medicine-related inquiries. A self-administered mail survey was distributed to the target population from three primary care trusts (a primary care trust is responsible for all healthcare needs of its geographically bound population; on average, each primary care trust covers 170,000 people) in Southern England. The main outcome measures of the study were to identify current users, determine awareness of the medicines information service among nonusers, and evaluate the sources of information used by nonusers when answering medicine-related enquiries. Only 25% of the target population were current users of the medicines information service. Of the remaining respondents who were not current users, half were unaware of the service. Traditional information sources, such as the British National Formulary, were most frequently used to answer enquiries. Overall, doctors were more aware of and used the service to a greater extent than nurses. This study showed that primary care practitioners did not make the best use of the medicines information service resource available to them.

Medicine-related questions handled by community pharmacists: an exploratory study

“…This may reflect the available sources they have to deal with medicine‐related enquiries. Studies have shown that doctors access reference sources such as the British National Formulary and the Medicines Compendium Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPCs) 7 . Given that these two reference sources were most used by pharmacists in this study, and over 80% ( n = 53/64) of responses were categorised as green, perhaps doctors should be encouraged to refer more enquiries to the community pharmacist, and in so doing free their time.…”

“…However, little research has been conducted to determine the nature of medicine‐related questions that community pharmacies handle, nor the validity of the responses 6 . Research data relating to medicine call handling seem to be limited to specialist services 7 or national drug information centres 8 …”

Utility and value of a medicines information service provided by pharmacists: a survey of health professionals

“…GPs formed a lower proportion of users. Research shows that, even when GPs are aware of UKMi services, many do not use them because they lack understanding of what they offer [47] or maybe because they seek advice from community or practice pharmacists, or prescribing advisors. We did not investigate why HPs were motivated to contact the NWMi Centre, but it has been shown that a need for independent evidence‐based information and lack of time and skills in accessing and appraising information can prompt prescribers to contact medicines information services [48] …”

Pharmaceutical information: A 30‐year perspective on the literature

“…This may involve creation of centralized drug databases, input into creation of local formularies and prescribing policies, and assessment of new drugs, as well as advising on use of medicines for particular patients. Such services have been shown to have a direct and beneficial impact on patient care in providing information on adverse drug effects (Stubbington, Bowey, Hands, & Brown, 1998) but evidence of more general impact is limited (Hands, Stephens, & Brown, 2002; Rutter, Brown, & Rutter, 2004).…”