Dg Webb

Assessment of Clinical Competence: Designing a Competence Grid for Junior Pharmacists

Aim. This paper describes the development of a competency framework for clinical practice undertaken by junior pharmacists. Method. A peer group consisting of clinical practitioners and academics developed competency clusters. Competencies were assigned to each cluster and the associated behaviours described. The resulting “grids” were circulated to clinical practitioners, senior pharmacy managers and junior pharmacists for comment. A four point scale was developed to evaluate performance of the junior pharmacist for each behaviour. Outputs. The competency grids comprise three clusters: personal, problem solving and clinical. These are currently under investigation to determine their measurement properties.

The General Level Framework: use in primary care and community pharmacy to support professional development

Objectives To compare practice pharmacists and community pharmacists based on the use of the General Level Framework (GLF) as a tool to support continuing professional development (CPD).

Educational intervention in pharmacy students' attitudes to HIV/AIDS and drug misuse

Summary: By providing injecting equipment to drug misusers, community pharmacists in the UK may become involved in preventing the spread of HIV via the intravenous route. Over 60% of pharmacy graduates from the School of Pharmacy enter community pharmacy and, as part of their undergraduate course, attend a series of lectures and seminars on HIV/AIDS and drug misuse. The aim of this research was to:

A pilot study to evaluate clinical competence in junior grade pharmacy practitioners

This pilot project investigated pharmacists’ performance, using a previously designed and evaluated competency assessment grid, over a 12 week period in eight active and one control sites. At baseline and 12 weeks later, assessors defined the clinical service provision “expected” and then assessed junior pharmacists’ service against these specifications. The observed and expected competencies for each task were then compared. A number of assessors from the active sites were interviewed to determine the ease of use, the process adopted and the time taken to carry out the assessment of a student. Over the 12 week period students in the active group (n 5 24) showed a significant improvement in their ability to perform key tasks in all but one area whilst there was no significant change in performance in the control group (n 5 4). Evidence indicated that a variety of approaches were used when carrying out assessments using the grids by the five assessors interviewed. Additionally, the effects of using the grid on the assessment process had a range of organisational benefits across the active sites, highlighting the flexibility of the grids in diverse departments. The results indicate that the competency assessment grids can detect a change in pharmacists’ performance and that this might reflect the pharmacists’ awareness of the behaviours being assessed.