Considering that there is a greater emphasis on a definitely patient-centred approach to healthcare,39 it is reassuring to see that Australian pharmacists understand the importance of how services are delivered to people with chronic conditions and their carers. However, while studies have reviewed patient–pharmacist interactions

for patient-centred communication,40 and explored what patient-centred professionalism means within the pharmacy context,19–21 research exploring the application of patient-centred care within a community pharmacy setting is limited. It is clearly evident that pharmacists and community pharmacy are missing from the literature on patient-centred interventions,41 and that further research

is needed in this area. Moreover, professional pharmacy organisations should provide further assistance to pharmacies to develop patient-centred services. Assistance could include a support unit including online resources and training for pharmacy staff, and assistance for pharmacists to tailor services to individual clients. Indeed, integration of patient-centred training of pharmacy students into clinical training must be advocated.42 The service most commonly accessed by consumers and carers was medication advice. However, this was not the case for one-third of participants. This could be due to a number of reasons, for example, these participants may not need advice as they have been managing their condition/s for a long period of time. Alternatively, consumers may not seek information from community pharmacists because of a lack of awareness of the pharmacist’s role or expertise,36 or the current pharmacy environment. Similar factors are also believed to influence the provision of patient-centred professionalism by the pharmacist.21 It is often suggested that community

pharmacists consider their physical working environment,21 such as improving the lack of privacy,43 44 which can impact on the public trust of pharmacists.4 However, in this study, a private consultation room was of lower importance for people with chronic conditions when rating pharmacy service characteristics. Furthermore, pharmacists overestimated the value of a private consultation room. It may be that how pharmacy staff communicate with consumers is Drug_discovery more relevant than the actual space when it comes to respecting privacy. The importance of tailoring information by taking into account a person’s context and experiences, as well as developing a relationship to facilitate this information sharing, is in accord with previous research.45 Our study corroborates that information on prescribed medication is what people with chronic conditions and their carers rate as important from community pharmacies, even if they do not currently utilise this service.