Development of an evidence-led competency framework for primary care and community pharmacists

Aim: To adapt and validate the general level competency framework to be relevant for primary care and community pharmacists. To compare the framework with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's "Competencies of the future pharmacy workforce" document. Design: Literature review, consensus development panels, expert panel, mapping. Subjects and setting: Members of the consensus development panels were representatives from primary care trusts, multiple pharmacy organisations, key stakeholder organisations and individual community pharmacists. Results: The literature review identified 78 behavioural statements, reduced to 69 statements by the expert panel review. These 69 statements were mapped onto a framework previously developed for secondary care. Amendments and additions were made and agreed by the concensus development panels. The adapted framework consisted of 104 behavioural statements organised into four clusters: delivery of patient care, perspoal, problem solving and management and organisation. When this framework was mapped against the 266 statements listed in the Society's report, 218 could be located in the adapted framework. Conclusions: This study has adapted the general level framework for pharmacists working in primary care and community pharmacy. The framework is evidence-based, grounded in thew literature and validated by expert individual pharmacist opinion. A controlled trial to test the effectiveness of the adapted general level framework as an educational intervention to improve the competence of primary care and community pharmacists is currently under way. The framework complements the Society's initiative and has the potential to turn the "Competencies of the future pharmacy workforce" into a format that could usefully be adopted as a performance enhancement tool.