Abstract
Background
Healthcare delivery in the UK is shifting towards community-based, preventative, and population-focused care. Community pharmacy is well placed to support this transition. The importance of community pharmacy has been highlighted by national policies alongside the need for strong research foundations within this setting. Despite major changes in community pharmacy and its easy accessibility to wide and diverse communities, research engagement remains limited. Evidence on the barriers to community pharmacy research engagement and how to overcome these is scarce. This project aims to co-develop a toolkit to enhance research engagement in community pharmacy and to widely disseminate findings to key stakeholders to support implementation.
Protocol
This study will use a Community of Practice (CoP) framework and will draw on the principles of Implementation Mapping (IM). The CoP will include key stakeholders to support the co-development of the research engagement toolkit. Stakeholders will include patients/public members and representatives from pharmacy, primary and secondary care, academia, commissioning, and research delivery professionals. Five meetings will be held online with the CoP (n = up to 15). Meetings will be recorded, transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed to identify common, emerging themes., to support the toolkit co-development. A separate patient and public advisory group will also be established to provide guidance and assistance across the duration of the study. The CoP and patient and public advisory group will advise on the most appropriate dissemination routes to reach the widest audience so that our recommendations help to build community pharmacy research.
Discussion
Despite its central role in the healthcare system, and its easy accessibility to wider and diverse communities, community pharmacy engagement in research is still limited. A collaborative CoP stakeholder group would help better how to overcome barriers and to co-develop a toolkit to enhance research engagement and build research capacity, thus supporting greater participation in research.
Plain Language summary
The healthcare system in the UK is changing, moving services closer
to homes and local communities. Community pharmacy practice is
also changing, with a wider range of services provided to patients and
public members (e.g., checking blood pressure). To keep up with the
developments in healthcare services, participating in research is
important; to better understand the experiences of people using
these services and the effects it may have on them.
However, community pharmacies have limited involvement in
research. We do not fully understand what makes it difficult for
pharmacies to take part in research and the challenges they face. This
study will develop a toolkit to support pharmacy teams by providing
practical solutions to the barriers they may face in relation to taking
part in research.
To do this, we will set up a group of people, which will include patients
and public members, researchers, and healthcare professionals
including pharmacists. This group will work together, share ideas, and
help design the toolkit to community pharmacies to take part in
research. We will tell the wider research, professional and public
communities about the toolkit to build community pharmacy
research.
Healthcare delivery in the UK is shifting towards community-based, preventative, and population-focused care. Community pharmacy is well placed to support this transition. The importance of community pharmacy has been highlighted by national policies alongside the need for strong research foundations within this setting. Despite major changes in community pharmacy and its easy accessibility to wide and diverse communities, research engagement remains limited. Evidence on the barriers to community pharmacy research engagement and how to overcome these is scarce. This project aims to co-develop a toolkit to enhance research engagement in community pharmacy and to widely disseminate findings to key stakeholders to support implementation.
Protocol
This study will use a Community of Practice (CoP) framework and will draw on the principles of Implementation Mapping (IM). The CoP will include key stakeholders to support the co-development of the research engagement toolkit. Stakeholders will include patients/public members and representatives from pharmacy, primary and secondary care, academia, commissioning, and research delivery professionals. Five meetings will be held online with the CoP (n = up to 15). Meetings will be recorded, transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed to identify common, emerging themes., to support the toolkit co-development. A separate patient and public advisory group will also be established to provide guidance and assistance across the duration of the study. The CoP and patient and public advisory group will advise on the most appropriate dissemination routes to reach the widest audience so that our recommendations help to build community pharmacy research.
Discussion
Despite its central role in the healthcare system, and its easy accessibility to wider and diverse communities, community pharmacy engagement in research is still limited. A collaborative CoP stakeholder group would help better how to overcome barriers and to co-develop a toolkit to enhance research engagement and build research capacity, thus supporting greater participation in research.
Plain Language summary
The healthcare system in the UK is changing, moving services closer
to homes and local communities. Community pharmacy practice is
also changing, with a wider range of services provided to patients and
public members (e.g., checking blood pressure). To keep up with the
developments in healthcare services, participating in research is
important; to better understand the experiences of people using
these services and the effects it may have on them.
However, community pharmacies have limited involvement in
research. We do not fully understand what makes it difficult for
pharmacies to take part in research and the challenges they face. This
study will develop a toolkit to support pharmacy teams by providing
practical solutions to the barriers they may face in relation to taking
part in research.
To do this, we will set up a group of people, which will include patients
and public members, researchers, and healthcare professionals
including pharmacists. This group will work together, share ideas, and
help design the toolkit to community pharmacies to take part in
research. We will tell the wider research, professional and public
communities about the toolkit to build community pharmacy
research.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | NIHR Open Research |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue number | 133 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 26 Aug 2026 |
Bibliographical note
Copyright © 2026 Al-Jabr H et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Data Access Statement
No data are associated with this article.Additional files supporting this article can be accessed via the Open Science Framework at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/8KPVN.44
The study contains the following extended data:
1. Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR) Checklist.
2. DARE-Community Pharmacy study advert_V1_24th March 2026.
3. DARE-Community Pharmacy Expression of interest form. V1.24th March 2026.
4. DARE-Community Pharmacy Participant Information Leaflet_V1_24th March 2026.
5. DARE-Community Pharmacy Online Consent form_V1_24th March 2026.
6. DARE-Community Pharmacy Proposed Flowchart for the CoP meetings. V1_19th March 2026.
Data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC-BY 4.0).
Funding
This project is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) under its [Research Delivery Network Strategic Funding (Grant Reference Number 0073719)]. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care. Professor Ian Maidment and Dr Emma Healey are the co-leads for this project. This study is also supported by Professor Maidment's Senior Investigator award (62483).
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