Translating Improvement Skills Helping GP practice-based pharmacists (PBPs) to implement their improvement skills: assessing the value of a community of practice (CoP) model

The Health Foundation is working with Professor Alison Bullock at the University of Cardiff to explore the translation of improvement skills and knowledge gained through training, into action on the front line.

The work will examine how and in what circumstances being part of a community of practice (CoP) supports practice-based pharmacists (PBPs, i.e. those pharmacists based in a GP practice) to use their improvement skills to improve their practice.

The project will use a case study design with a realist approach, to explore translation in GP BPBs in Wales who have undertaken bronze IQT (Improving Quality Together training). The specific objectives are:

• To develop an ‘official’ theory (logic model) to describe the conditions or context under which the mechanisms operate to produce desired outcomes.
• Undertake a CoP case study, observing meetings, interviewing participants and collecting data on: the development of technical, soft and learning skills; the employment of the habits of an improver; and employment of QI skills.
• Present a ‘real’ theory which describes the features required for optimising the contribution of a CoP and implementation of QI skills.

The principal scholarly output will be a programme theory that identifies the mechanisms by which the intended outcomes of QI training can be optimised, contexts which support or impede the CoP mechanism and for whom it works or does not work. This will form the basis of a summary of the potential consequences for individuals and organisations and recommendations for the future.