title: Pharmacy technicians' views of learning and practice implementation.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Registered pharmacy technicians are a new group of regulated healthcare professionals in Great Britain, who fall under the same requirements for undertaking and recording of continuing professional development (CPD) as pharmacists. Little is known about this group of pharmacy professionals, their understanding of CPD and learning, or how they implement their learning into practice. This study aimed to address this.
  
  
  METHODS
  A questionnaire was developed and sent to all 216 attendees of an interactive continuing education workshop provided in 12 different geographical locations in England.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Over a third (n = 146; 67.6%) responded. The majority (94.5%) were female, aged between 40 and 49 years (43.8%), and had qualified less than 10 years ago (49.4%). Most worked in community (56.2%) or hospital (19.9%) pharmacy. When asked about whether they had implemented any of the workshop learning into practice, 84.2% ticked at least one option from a predetermined list, and 83.6% provided detailed descriptions of a situation, what they did and its outcome. These were grouped into two themes: people and places. Places referred to comments made about changes to systems, operations or equipment within the workplace; people concerned changes within respondents themselves or others, such as staff or customers. More than two-thirds (70.3%) had used their learning to create a CPD record, and those who had not (n = 43) gave lack of time but also lack of understanding as reasons.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study has provided detailed insights into pharmacy technicians' learning, reflection and practice implementation following an interactive workshop.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Pharmacy Workforce Studies, Workforce Academy, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK. ellen.schafheutle@manchester.ac.uk
authors.forename: Ellen I
authors.initials: EI
authors.lastname: Schafheutle
authors.forename: Clare
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cutts
authors.forename: Paula J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Higginson
authors.forename: Peter R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Noyce
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004513:Education, Pharmacy, Continuing; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010596:Pharmacy Technicians / Q000193:education*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires