Pharmacy Continence Care - Bladder and Bowel Website

Numbers of customers advised
The pharmacy exit questionnaire showed that a smaller minority (22 per cent vs. 35 per cent
in pre-trial questionnaire) of pharmacies provided advice to more than five customers a week
compared with before the trial. Given the results on the duration of advisory efforts, this
result would be consistent with fewer customers receiving more detailed advice from
pharmacists, say three customers receiving 45 minutes of advice from the pharmacist,
compared with eight customers receiving 10 minutes of advice from the pharmacist
previously.
4.2.8 Costs/benefits of training and cross-referral to other health professionals
Pharmacy-borne training costs
Pharmacy training costs were calculated in terms of hourly costs for the staff members
involved. Figure 30 shows that the cost of training for most pharmacies was between $100
and $500, with only a handful of (bigger) pharmacies reporting higher costs. Allowing for
more accurate (post training) estimates in the exit questionnaire, the average cost of
training borne by pharmacies themselves was $140 and the total cost of the trial for those
reporting any costs (42 pharmacies) was $6,000.
Over $1000
$501 - $999
$101 - $500
0 to $100
Nil response
Figure 30: Pharmacy reported cost of training
PCCP training costs
Pharmacy reported cost of Training
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Number of Pharmacies
The total costs of training the pharmacies that participated in PCCP was just under $37,300,
of which $30,000 was the cost of purchasing a trainer service. The other costs were around
$5,000 for design of the logo, website and compilation of the CDs containing all the
materials, and around $2,300 for printing of the training materials and postage. This works
out at a little more than $750 per pharmacy. With an additional $150 or so borne by the
average pharmacy in terms of staff training time, the total cost of this pilot of the PCCP was
around $900 per pharmacy.
The costs of rolling out the PCCP nationally can be expected to be lower than the average
per-pharmacy trial costs, as the design and content of the training materials and website are
already in place.
Costs that would require funding in a Stage 3 roll-out would be reproduction of existing
materials, administration of the Program, and delivery of group training according to a
Final Report
37
NOVA Public Policy
Pharmacy Continence Care Project