Boots and Oxford University have teamed up to test recruiting customers for pharmacy trials following the introduction of Pharmacy First, the company last week (November 27) announced.
It said the study, which will take place at a single Boots store in Durham Market Place, comes as “primary care pathways for certain common conditions shift from GP surgeries” to pharmacies.
The store is recruiting “customers presenting with urinary tract infection (UTI) symptoms” to the trial, which “investigates optimal antibiotic treatment durations to tackle antimicrobial resistance”.
“Permanent shift”
Boots said that the Pharmacy First service “represents a permanent shift requiring systematic adaptation” when it comes to pharmacy trial recruitment - and that the company’s “high street presence and public trust with established clinical infrastructure” makes it “uniquely positioned to test this approach”.
The research “will assess whether recruitment rates and data quality match GP-based recruitment and “address practical questions around workflow management, consent processes and sample collection logistics,” it added.
Read more: Pharmacy First: Report reveals ‘no change’ to UTI antibiotic resistance
The senior trial manager of Oxford University’s primary care clinical trials unit, Lucy Cureton, said that the introduction of Pharmacy First “has been hugely beneficial” but has “fundamentally changed where patients present with UTI symptoms”.
“This presents a challenge to primary care clinical trials, where GP surgeries are a key location for recruiting participants,” she said, adding that the university wants to “show that research can pivot alongside the changing landscape of healthcare delivery”.
And Boots director of life sciences and clinical trials Heather Elliot said the partnership “demonstrates how community pharmacies can contribute to nationally important research whilst delivering expanded clinical services”.
Critical evidence
Boots said the research is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and aims to address a “critical evidence gap in antimicrobial resistance”.
It added that “limited evidence on optimal treatment length” means that “current practice risks unnecessarily prolonged antibiotic use”, which is “a key driver of resistance development”.
And the study aims to recruit 1,650 women “across primary and secondary care settings”, the company said, “randomising women with bladder infections to receive commonly prescribed antibiotics for varying durations” and “women with kidney infections to comparable treatments for different periods”.
Read more: MHRA approves UK’s ‘first new’ UTI antibiotic in 30 years
Participants will “complete symptom diaries and provide urine samples to assess both clinical recovery and resistance development up to 42 days after treatment”, it said.
It added that recruitment “continues across GP practices and secondary care settings” until next February, with results “expected by year-end” - and that the findings will “inform national and international prescribing guidelines for UTI treatment duration”.
Read more: Poll: 70% of pharmacies want Pharmacy First booking system
It comes after the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) revealed “no change in resistance” to a common urinary tract infection (UTI) antibiotic following its introduction to the Pharmacy First service.
A new UKHSA report on antimicrobial use and resistance in England for 2024/25, which this year looked at antibiotic prescriptions from the Pharmacy First service for the first time, found “no change in resistance” to nitrofurantoin between 2023 and 2024 following its introduction to the service last February.
