Creating ‘pharmacist personas’ as a practical tool for navigating a system in flux

Pharmacy in England is undergoing its most radical transformation in a generation. The establishment of the Royal College of Pharmacy, the move to newly qualified pharmacists as independent prescribers from 2026, and the policy drive towards a unified “one pharmacy workforce” mark a fundamental shift in pharmacists’ professional identity work — from dispensers and scientists to clinicians^​1​.

The expansion of pharmacists’ roles, the central focus of the government’s policy, requires systemic change and investment in learning and support mechanisms to future-proof pharmacists’ capacity to deliver patient care safely.

One of the greatest challenges to this change is the inequitable and fragmented nature of training and learning opportunities for pharmacists in different sectors/settings. While hospital pharmacy often benefits from structured support from multidisciplinary teams, pharmacists working in primary care and especially those in community pharmacies, frequently face isolation and unstructured opportunities, with a lack of clear career progression. Bridging this gap requires innovative thinking. We argue that “pharmacist personas” offer a practical tool for learning and career development.

Originating in the fields of marketing and user-experience design, a “persona” is a fictional archetype that represents the needs, behaviours and goals of a specific group. In the context of pharmacy, pharmacist personas allow pharmacists to visualise different versions of professional identity. 

The value of pharmacist personas is threefold^​2​:

• First, they make the invisible visible: personas provide concrete examples of professional trajectories. As the saying goes, “if you can’t see it, you can’t be it”;
• Second, they support identity work: personas help pharmacists answer the question “who do I want to become and how do I achieve it?” rather than simply “what task must I complete?”;
• Third, they offer personalised learning: a persona-based approach to pharmacists’ learning, unlike ‘one-size-fits-all’ resources, can be adapted by pharmacists working across different sectors/settings and roles.

Recognising this potential, the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) research and evaluation team has undertaken a study over the past 18 months to develop pharmacist personas. Our approach is distinguished by its methodological rigour. We undertook a broad review of existing evidence, conducted a survey and then conducted narrative interviews with pharmacists across different sectors and career stages. A narrative approach is valuable for studying pharmacist personas because it captures the lived complexity of pharmacists’ learning and career journeys, producing dynamic personas that can evolve alongside pharmacists’ changing roles. We are now in the final phase of the study, where we are refining and validating these personas with pharmacists in different sectors/settings and roles.

Pharmacist personas are not an end in themselves nor a solution to the wider workforce crisis. Instead, they are a practical tool that can help pharmacists navigate a system in flux, highlighting new and existing opportunities for career progression and development as well as potential pitfalls that can be avoided with the right training and support mechanisms. 

Imelda McDermott, Jolanta Shields, Natalie Tse, Ellen Schafheutle, Paula Higginson and Matthew Shaw

Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education