Table 3.

Illustrative quotations.

Conventional theme	Quotations
1. Environmental context and resources
1.1 Current pressures in primary care	“So, you need to look at things like 25% of Irish GPs are over the age of 60, so there are a significant number of retirements which are going to make the manpower issue worse.” [GP 11]
1.2 Resources required to support pharmacist integration	“…but initially it would need to be HSEa-funded, ehm… you know once it became if it became the norm and GPs could see the value of it to the practice then I would say that they would be happy to part-fund it and it would have to HSE-funded initially.” [GP 16]
1.3 Role logistics will depend on individual practice environments	“…do you want a full time or part time. I want enough of the resource to, to do the job right and if that’s full time, happy days.” [GP 10]
2. Social professional role and identity
2.1 Optimizing pharmacotherapy and service provision in general practice	“I would love someone to do a drug review with me and see am I doing this right or am I doing this wrong.” [GP 17]
2.2 Role definition to minimize overlap with others’ roles	“So, I think it’s really important that both…that all the health professionals have a really clear understanding of where everybody’s boundaries and limitations are.” [GP 14]
2.3 Patient cohorts where pharmacists are particularly needed	“I mean the demographics of my practice in particular would be an older practice. So, with multiple comorbidities, polypharmacy and those patients tend to be quite complicated and I think definitely maybe you know having input, having regular or scheduled input from pharmacy would be beneficial.” [GP 4]
3. Social influences
3.1 Becoming part of the team and supporting each other	“I don’t want somebody who dials in remotely and who I pay you know a contract for services. I want somebody who is part of the team.” [GP 10]
3.2 Existing societal norms and interprofessional tensions	“I think that obviously traditionally in Ireland when we do general practice its very much GP, practice nurse, and that’s it.” [GP 5]
3.3 Modelling the role	“I think maybe like the way the diabetes nurse specialist works. So she comes to our practice every 3 months and kind of does clinics, like maybe a more involved version of that.” [GP 2]
4. Beliefs about consequences
4.1 Consequences for GPs	“…more than anything else I would not want this pharmacist to be generating additional work for me. You know I don’t want them doing a medication review and leaving me a list of queries ehm…you know I really want it to be sorted.” [GP 8]
4.2 Consequences for patients and wider society	“….again, time consuming but you know it might keep patients out of hospital, it might prevent them getting infective exacerbations of their COPD, so I think that’s an area that there’s lots of work that could be done.” [GP 3]
4.3 Consequences for the practice	“…I think that would make the logistics of ehm… the practice management a whole lot easier, well a whole lot more streamlined I suppose.” [GP 7]
4.4 Consequences for community pharmacists	“I do appreciate from a retail pharmacist that actually this is not good news because actually if you, if you do, do it well and you reduce the number of medicines and you use the cheaper versions actually that’s reducing their turnover and so you know no one else in the, in the financial world would be expected to deliver high-quality care and be penalised financially as a result which is what would happen for a pharmacist.” [GP 8]
5. Beliefs about capabilities
5.1 Beliefs about GPs’ capabilities	“…with the best will in the word, there are mistakes that are made and there are things that we could do better.” [GP 9]
5.2 Beliefs about pharmacists’ capabilities	“…once a person is kind of motivated and once they’re an individual who gets into pharmacy school and who gets out the other end, is by definition they’re motivated, they’re highly educated.” [GP 7]
6. Skills
6.1 Further training required	“…there’s a degree of training would be required above and beyond possibly normal pharmacy to, to actually go down that road. Just as there is for nurse practitioners to go down that road.” [GP 1]
6.2 Making the most of pharmacists’ existing skillsets	“But if you’re in general practice you know are they, I suppose you’re always trying to get people working to their skillsets the highest level of their skillset and not wasting their time with maybe jobs that someone else with a lower skillset could do.” [GP 2]
6.3 Additional skills requirements	“…good teamwork anyway definitely because you have to be able to you know get on well with everybody in the practice, so the admin staff, the nursing staff… I suppose somebody who would be less paternalistic with patients…good sort of empathetic patient care and communication.” [GP 5]
7. Knowledge
7.1 GP awareness of pharmacists’ knowledge of medications and training	“I’d often put this on my prescriptions: pharmacists are the medication experts. If you have any questions, please ask your pharmacist. By the time a pharmacist qualifies, they have five years of medicines under their belt and pharmacists’ knowledge is encyclopaedic.” [GP 8]
7.2 Awareness of the role of pharmacists in general practice	“They’d be like who are you? Are you a community pharmacist, do you dispense my medicines? I often find that kind of a thing will baffle the patient a bit.” [GP 12]

^aHealth Service Executive.