These include new roles for pharmacists, such as prescribing a short course of medication under a GP’s agreed healthcare plan, as well as implementing tools to facilitate continuity and coordinated care, such as a person’s medication dispensing

history linked to all community pharmacies. The importance of continued medication selleck chemical Carfilzomib supply was also confirmed by two other studies undertaken within the larger project,35 37 and support for this role by Australian consumers has been underscored by Hoti et al.46 This is even more relevant given that their study recruited similar consumers to our study, that is, people who were regularly using prescription medication.46 Medication management and supply services, such as repeat prescription reminders, home deliveries, and the opportunity to obtain a pharmacist’s advice in a way that best suited them, for example, online or face to face, was more important for carers than for people with chronic conditions. Despite the smaller number of carers in our sample (relative to consumers), these results emphasise the importance of these specific services to reduce carer burden. Yet the importance of prescription reminders was underestimated by pharmacists in the survey. Given that this service is relatively

easy to implement, for example, verbal or short message service (SMS) text reminders for prescription renewal, this should become, if it is not already, common practice in Australian pharmacies. Australian pharmacists should also consider the study findings before discontinuing, reducing the availability, or increasing the costs of home delivery services.47 At the very least, this service should be offered to the carers that utilise their pharmacy. People with chronic conditions and their carers placed lower importance on pharmacists or pharmacies offering

health and wellness programmes, or providing basic adult vaccinations. Pharmacists corroborated this finding. This research did not explore the reasons behind why certain services were more important than others, and so we can only hypothesise. It is plausible that participants were focusing on the daily management of their condition rather than preventative measures when completing the survey. People who have lived with a chronic condition Entinostat for a long time can become well informed about their condition/s, particularly with how it affects them,48 and many would be eligible for influenza or pneumococcal vaccination, at no extra cost, during their GP consultation. Conclusion Overall, pharmacists had a reasonable understanding of what consumers with chronic conditions and their carers would rate as important in terms of pharmacy services. Greater value was placed on how pharmacy services are delivered, that is, in a patient-centred manner, particularly when providing medication information.