Hospital trust engagement with a new vocational learning programme for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in England

Objectives: This study aimed to explore hospital trusts' uptake of Learning@Lunch (L@L), a new vocational learning programme for hospital pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in acute and mental health trusts in England, recently introduced by the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE). Methods: The CPPE's ordering database for the first eight L@L modules, with addition of hospital trust and pharmacy characteristics, was analysed using SPSS, providing simple frequencies and χ2 cross-tabulations. Key findings: The CPPE database contained data for 168 acute and 73 mental health trusts, about a third of each being foundation trusts. One-third (33.3%) of acute trusts were teaching, and the majority of them (91.1%) offered pre-registration places for 2009, the mean number being 3.39; only three mental health trusts offered places. L@L uptake by specialist and mental health trusts was lower than by those providing general services. Uptake was highest in the North and South, and lowest in London. Acute trusts with zero to two pre-registration places had a higher uptake than those offering three or more. Conclusions: Despite limitations of the database, analysis provides interesting insights into the uptake of this new learning programme, which are of interest to CPPE, as well as pharmacy academics and educationalists. L@L uptake by specialist and mental health trusts was significantly lower than that by acute trusts providing general services. Reasons for this need to be explored further to ensure that CPPE and other learning providers can meet the needs of hospital pharmacists and pharmacy technicians working in specialist areas, thus ensuring refresher training in core clinical areas. © 2009 The Authors.