Although entering your project for the Project Awards is not compulsory, the GPhC expect pre-registration trainee pharmacists to have successfully carried out a small, planned audit assignment (performance standard A4.8). Therefore, we encourage all pre-registration trainee pharmacists to work towards completing their audit by the competition’s deadlines and to take the opportunity to share and if short listed, present their work on the project awards day. Completing a project is an excellent opportunity to show a range of your skills and can give you a great sense of achievement.
For the purpose of the project awards, we do not require a detailed full version of your project. If the findings of your project are very significant and have major implications to practice, your hospital may ask for further information e.g. full presentation of all your results. This would be a major achievement to see your work recognised and you should discuss this with your supervisor/tutor. In most hospitals, you will be asked to present your results to the pharmacy department.
The differences between research and audit are as follows.
Audit
Asks: Are we doing the right thing in the right way?
Research
Asks: What is the right thing to do?
If your project has a research focus, ensure you have agreed this with your tutor. Research should not be overtly exhaustive but should include clear findings and recommendations. Further research may be one of your conclusions if you were auditing on a particular area.
The difference between survey and audit are as follows.
Survey
You should think carefully about the overall objectives of your project which should be an audit of a subject area. You may wish to use questionnaires if this is relevant to your objectives and if it is a useful tool to extract data you need. By completing a questionnaire and presenting the results without linking it to your objectives will not be useful. You should think carefully about how you will design questionnaires, over what time frame, whether it will capture the data you need and whether it will help you.
Check with your work place rota/ training agreement to see if the document contains a ‘project week’ for your trust. The GPhC does not specify how much time should be allocated for their audit, only that you complete your project during the course of the year. Some trusts give trainees from 1 – 4 weeks to focus on their project. However much time you get (if any) would be given at the discretion of your manager/ project supervisor/ line manager in a particular rotation.
Yes, as long as one pre-registration trainee pharmacist is prepared to put their name against the work and take the credit for it.
No, the maximum limit word count (including references and any text in the graph and table) must be adhered to. You should also pay particular attention to the format requirements which are detailed in the project guidance section of our website. If your project does not meet any of the format requirements and word count limit, your project will not be short listed, although the standard of work may be exemplary. So, always check each of the guidance points stated before submitting.
The words you use in tables, graphs and references including titles are all included within the word count.
Completing your project is a great achievement. You may wish to include details of what new skills you gained whilst completing it on future job applications and in interviews. In some cases, you may even be contacted in the future by someone who wishes to seek further information on your findings, and seek consent in quoting your results for their project.
Your trust may also want to take the opportunity to present a poster of your work at one of the many pharmaceutical conferences.
You should view the project award presentations as an excellent opportunity to demonstrate your communication skills and to share your achievements with your peers. To be selected is an accomplishment to state in your CV. You should manage your time and you may wish to discuss protected time for your preparation but this will be at your tutor's discretion. We will provide guidance information on how to prepare oral and poster presentations.
While the GPhC registration exam is in June, you should view your preparation as part of your normal work.