Medicine information help lines: A survey of hospital pharmacy-based services in the UK and their conformity with guidelines

OBJECTIVE: To describe the prevalence and nature of hospital pharmacy-based medicine help lines for consumers in the UK and to compare service provisi on with published guidelines. BACKGROUND: Since 1992, telephone help lines for patients have proliferated in hospital pharmacies in the UK. There is no common template for such ser vices with variations in target group, number and type of calls, and arrang ements for training and audit. Data on these factors will help guide furthe r development of such services. METHODS: All medicine help lines operating from hospital pharmacies in the UK were identified through the national Drug Information Pharmacists networ k. They were sent a piloted questionnaire covering many aspects of help lin e operation, including funding, method of advertisement, procedures, target group, number and nature of calls, and audit procedures. RESULTS: Eighty-two help lines were identified in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Completed responses were received from 69 help lines (84% response rate). The pharmacy drug information center was the help lin e site in 57% of hospitals; all other help lines were located in the dispen sary. In 55% of cases, help lines were open only to patients of the hospita l. In the remainder of help lines, calls from the public were answered (alt hough the majority of help lines only advertised to hospital patients). Cal ls were answered by pharmacists only in 45% of services. and additional sta ff training had been provided in 43%. Only 48% of services had written proc edures or guidelines for operation of the help line. Forty-six percent of t he services received fewer than five calls per week, 31% received between f ive and 10 calls per week, and 22% received 11 or more calls per week. In 5 9% of the sites, calls took an average of 10 minutes or less to answer; it took 11-15 minutes in 32% of the sites and >15 minutes in 9% of the sites. The most common queries related to adverse effects, dosage and administrati on, and interactions (including alcohol). Only 33% of help lines had any au diting or. monitoring of the service in place. CONCLUSIONS: The increasing use of the telephone to provide services direct ly to consumers is reflected in the growth of hospital-based medicine help lines in the UK. The telephone route is likely to become more important as patients' needs for information about their medicines increase. However, th e rate of calls is low when compared with the number of patients issued pre scriptions; further research is needed to investigate the reasons for this low response. There is currently reason for concern because most help lines lack not only professional training in telephone counseling, but also prop er documentation, monitoring, and audit procedures.