Pharmacy Practice Research 2011 5

© 2011 The Author. IJPP © 2011Royal Pharmaceutical Society 2011 International Journal of Pharmacy Practice, 19 (Suppl. 2), p. 5

Pharmacy Practice Research 2011

Introduction

It is with great pleasure that I introduce this supplement to the International Journal of Pharmacy Practice (IJPP). Here, you will find the abstracts of the pharmacy practice research papers and posters presented at the 2011 Royal Pharmaceutical Society Conference, held at Goldsmiths, University of London from 11 to 12 September. The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Ensuring effective teamworking and collaboration with patients and professionals’. Teamwork impacts on us all, regardless of where we work, so we are offering a broad range of choices, including examples of successful local projects and development of leadership and teamworking skills.

In common with previous years, this supplement has been prepared in advance of the conference, to allow participants in the practice research sessions to read the abstracts prior to the sessions. This is why you will find on page 1 the pro-gramme for the practice research sessions, even though IJPP subscribers may not receive the supplement until after the conference.

The abstracts

One hundred and thirty-five abstracts were submitted for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Conference 2011, and this year the Society’s Pharmacy Practice Research Panel accepted 105 for poster or oral presentation at the Conference. Please note that, although the abstracts have already been examined by the Panel, they have not passed through the peer review process applied by the IJPP to all other contributions. The

journal cannot therefore guarantee that they meet its usual stringent requirements.

The abstracts have, however, been subjected to a full editing process and, as far as possible, put into the normal IJPP editorial style. Authors were asked to limit the length of their contribution to allow each abstract to fit on to a single page of this supplement. A few abstracts, however, exceeded the specified maximum length and have had to be compressed or cut to fit onto a page.

Authors could submit abstracts which described either ‘Practice Research’ or ‘Practice Development and Audit’. Thus, the abstracts contained in the supplement fall into either of these two categories.

Throughout the two days of the conference, there are six separate practice research sessions for the oral presentation of accepted papers. These 30 abstracts (6–35) are listed in this supplement in the order in which they appear in the pro-gramme. The remaining 75 abstracts are those presented as posters, beginning with ‘Practice Development and Audit’ posters (pages 36–62), followed by ‘Practice Research’ posters (pages 62–102).

Award lecture

This year’s prestigious Pharmacy Practice Research Award (sponsored by The Pharmacy Practice Research Trust) has been awarded to Professor Derek Stewart, School of Pharmacy and Life Sciences, Robert Gordon University. His keynote lecture, entitled ‘A multidimensional view of the pharmacist prescriber’, is based on his research for the past 5 years on perspectives of and on pharmacists working as supplementary and independent prescribers. This lecture will be delivered on the 12 September at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Conference 2011. An outline of the lecture is included in this supplement. This research is highly relevant both to the prac-tice of pharmacy and to the conference theme of Teamwork. As Professor Stewart describes, pharmacist prescribers work within the hierarchy of modern healthcare practice and robust research to underpin their contribution is vital as they become imbedded within practice in primary and secondary care.

Dr Mary TullyChair of the Practice Research Panel and Royal

Pharmaceutical Society Conference 2011 Practice Chair

IJPP 2011, Supplement 2: 5© 2011 The AuthorsIJPP © 2011Royal Pharmaceutical Society