Pharmacy Continence Care - Bladder and Bowel Website

materials, the Pharmacist Training Module and the Pharmacy Assistant Training Module.
Stage 2 of the Pharmacy Continence Care Program, which is the subject of this report, was
commissioned in late 2004 to review the materials developed in Stage 1, and to research
and develop a training package and strategy to trial and evaluate the implementation of the
draft Pharmacy Continence Care Program by community pharmacies.
The Pharmacy Continence Care Program is intended to establish a role for pharmacists in
continence care, a role that has not been formally developed and articulated prior to this.
The Program has been designed for the pharmacist to assist in the identification of people
who are at risk of incontinence, and to provide continued support and management to
people with the condition. The Program is to enable the pharmacist to identify, advise,
counsel and/or refer and promote continence awareness to people with or at risk of
incontinence.
1.2 Stage 2 Pharmacy Continence Care Program
The second stage of the Pharmacy Continence Care Project (PCCP), which commenced in
September 2004, was to design, implement and evaluate a pilot program to provide
information and training to pharmacists and pharmacy assistants in community pharmacies,
and to establish draft standards for a national sustainable and cost-effective accreditation
program based on the Quality Care Pharmacy Practice (QCPP) standards and requirements.
The project is considered by the Pharmacy Guild to be important to all areas of pharmacy,
governments, and people affected by incontinence. The Guild considers the project offers
the potential for pharmacists and pharmacy assistants to be more formally recognised in
continence care and for the contribution they are able to make to the quality of life to those
whose incontinence is undiagnosed, poorly managed or under treated. The project is to
develop standards for possible incorporation into the Quality Care Pharmacy Practice
program and would enable interested pharmacies to participate in a standardised and
accredited quality care service in continence care.
This project (Stage 2) had a specific service development purpose rather than research per
se. The research component required was a measurement of the health and economic
outcomes of the program and an evaluation of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of
the intervention. The agreed project design aimed to demonstrate the outcomes and
benefits of the training materials, the training methodology, the pharmacy interaction with
consumers, the business benefit to pharmacies providing a continence care service, and the
health and other benefits to consumers, and, depending on the outcomes of the project, to
consider the potential to demonstrate to government the cost-effectiveness of including
pharmacists in the National Continence Management Strategy.
The project had four core tasks:
• to develop training and resource materials
• to develop and implement a training program
• to evaluate the outcomes of pharmacy-provided continence care following the training
program
• to recommend on the potential for implementation of the program as a participatory and
accredited quality care program for community care pharmacy.
The central research questions were the extent to which:
• participation in the training resulted in behaviour change in pharmacists and pharmacy
assistants
Final Report
2
NOVA Public Policy
Pharmacy Continence Care Project