Project status
In progress
Duration
Open-ended
In progress
Open-ended
The South West Pharmacy Research Network is a new initiative to promote pharmacy research collaboration between pharmacy teams, healthcare organisations and universities across the south west of England.
By pharmacy research, we mean any investigation of anything related to medicines, whether it's audit, service evaluation, quality improvement or 'full' research. We’re here for everyone across our region with an interest in this, whether your research journey is just about to start or began a long time ago:
We aim to increase pharmacy research activity and the engagement of practicing pharmacy staff in research, by acting as a catalyst and linking people, ideas, expertise, institutions and research funding across our region. We provide a forum to discuss ideas, find collaborators and learn – both for practitioners to learn about research methods, and researchers to learn about current practice. We will achieve these aims in various ways, including our regular online journal club and an annual innovation day, where recent findings, on-going projects, new ideas and good practice will be shared.
We can also assist pharmacy staff with career progression, for example by helping people obtain research experience to discuss at interview and by supporting the research elements of the consultant pharmacist framework, the advanced clinical practitioner framework and the RPS faculty pathway.
It's free to join our network and we're always looking for new members, so please read the section below if you're interested in joining our mailing list to get details of our events.
We work as a collaborative network of people interested in pharmacy research. Members of our network belong to our mailing list so they can receive our newsletters with details of our events, which are mainly held online. Members also have access to our Microsoft Team space, where they can share ideas and useful resources, as well as asking other members for advice.
We receive no external funding and are independent of the pharmaceutical industry.
It's easy to join the South West Pharmacy Research Network. Firstly, join our mailing list to receive news direct to your inbox:
Then join our Microsoft Teams site to get updates in between newsletters, discuss research with your fellow members and access our links to useful resources. Please email M.D.Jones@bath.ac.uk and ask to be added - we'll be delighted to hear from you! Access one of our past newsletters (below) for instructions on how to access our Teams site once you have been added to it.
Our regular newsletter includes details of upcoming events, training and research funding, as well as details of opportunities to contribute to research projects and other relevant news. Join our mailing list (see above) to receive future editions of the newsletter and use the links below to read past issues:
The South West Pharmacy Research Network's first Innovation Day was held on on 18 October 2023 at the Albemarle Centre in Taunton. We arranged an exciting programme to:
Following the success of this event, we will be holding our second in person Innovation Day on the 10th October 2024. Follow this link to find out more.
Journal clubs are a widely used tool to enable clinicians to keep up-to-date with current literature and to develop and maintain their skills in critical appraisal. Our journal club happens online every 8-12 weeks during a lunch hour and is designed to give any interested pharmacy staff the opportunity to engage in the review of a journal article; discussing study findings, application to practice and methodological issues. It is a gentle way to begin or resume interest in research activity and participants can come along to as many of as few meetings as they wish and engage as much or as little as they like. Meetings are usually recorded, and all members have access to previous sets of slides and recordings via Microsoft Teams.
We also welcome members who would like to present a paper related to their own area of clinical or professional experience. This can provide excellent evidence for people building the research element for their advanced practice or consultant portfolio.
During the first year of journal club meetings we discussed a wide variety of topics, such as:
Please join our mailing list (see above) if you'd like to receive details of journal club meetings.
We arrange occasional webinars to help our members develop their research knowledge and skills, and encourage them to take the next step on their research journey. Webinars are recorded and available in our MS Teams site.
Previous webinar topics have included:
We are planning a webinar for May or June 2023 to introduce the many organisations that support different stages of the research cycle, such as the Research Design Service and the NIHR Applied Research Collaborations.
We began as an online journal club, then a small steering group made up of NHS and university staff from across the region and many sectors of pharmacy began work to further develop the network in Autumn 2022. The current members of the steering group are:
We are actively recruiting new members for the steering group and are particularly keen to find GP pharmacy and primary care pharmacy representatives. Please use the details at the bottom of this page to get in touch if you are interested in joining the steering group.
The South West Pharmacy Research Network is a collaboration between pharmacy teams, healthcare organisations and universities in south west of England.
Please contact us if you'd like to find out more about the network.