Dr Ranjita Dhital, Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice (University of Reading), Principal Investigator of ‘Architecture of Pharmacies – Co-designing Pharmacy Spaces’: Pharmacy Research UK Leverhulme Fellowship (2018-2020), £44,972.

Pharmacy, Damien Hurst (Tate Modern)

Architecture of Pharmacies is an interdisciplinary arts-based research project which aims to understand how the physical and social spaces within community pharmacies are experienced by pharmacy service users and staff. This study will examine how the architecture of pharmacies may effect engagement with current and future pharmacy health services, and co-produce a community pharmacy design guide which could be evaluated in future research.

The community pharmacy is the most accessed health space in the UK and many other countries. However, we currently do not know what effects, for example, a small and cluttered pharmacy consultation room, pharmacy counter, shop floor or dispensary could have on pharmacy patients and staff. The community pharmacy profession has experienced significant developments over the years; however, spaces where these new pharmacy services are delivered have not been examined. What could this mean for pharmacy patients and staff? My study will investigate these questions by applying Experience-based Co-design (EBCD) and Photovoice methods to explore how community pharmacy spaces are experienced and how they could be optimised to engage patients with their treatment and support their wellbeing.

Collaborators: Professor Glenn Robert (King’s College London); Dr Jacqueline Sin (Psychology, UoR) and Dr Carolina Vasilikou (Architecture, UOR).

Publication

Dhital, R., Robert, G., Vasilikou, C., Gheerawo, R. and Sin, J., (2018) Systematic review on the effects of the physical and social aspects of the community pharmacy environment on pharmacy patients’ and staffs’ engagement with pharmacy health services. PROSPERO, UK