Medicine-related services in community pharmacy: public preferences for pharmacy attributes and promotional methods and comparison with pharmacists' perceptions

Background: Public awareness of pharmacy services designed to support use of medicines is low, yet little is known about how the public view promotion of these services or their preferences for the attributes of pharmacies from which they would like to receive them.

Method: Parallel surveys of the general public, using a street survey, and community pharmacists, via a postal survey in South East England.

Conclusions: Pharmacists and pharmacy owners must ensure good relationships with local medical practices to enable them to maximise opportunities for using the promotional methods judged most effective in encouraging use of medicine-related services. Staff must be approachable and enable access to pharmacists ensuring perceptions of pharmacist busyness are not a deterrent.