Organisational factors associated with safety climate, patient satisfaction and self-reported medicines adherence in community pharmacies.

Background: Evidence suggests that community pharmacy service quality varies, and that this may relate to pharmacy ownership. However little is known about wider organisational factors associated with quality.

Objective: To investigate organisational factors associated with variation in safety climate, patient satisfaction and self-reported medicines adherence in English community pharmacies.

How do organisational configuration and context influence the quantity and quality of NHS services provided by English community pharmacies? A qualitative investigation.

Community pharmacies are expanding their role into medicines-related healthcare and public health services, previously the domain of physicians and nurses, driven by policies to improve healthcare access for patients and to address problems of increasing demands and rising costs in primary and urgent care services. Understanding the organisational context into which this expansion is taking place is necessary given concerns over the extent to which pharmacies prioritise service volume over the quality of service provision. As part of a larger programme of work, this paper aims to explore stakeholder perceptions of the organisational and extra-organisational factors associated with service quality and quantity in community pharmacy as an established exemplar of private sector organisations providing publicly-funded healthcare.

Exploring medicines management by COPD patients and their social networks after hospital discharge.

Background Unplanned hospital admissions (UHAs) for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are a major burden on health services. Effective medicines management is crucial to avoid such admissions but little is known about the role of social networks in supporting medicines-taking. Objective To examine the activities and strategies recently discharged COPD patients and their social network members (SNMs) utilise to manage their medicines.