Table 5 A description of the full qualitative dataset for each study phase

Phase 1

• 23 participants were invited to take part including all six PINCER pharmacists, seven GPs, six practice managers, two researchers and two PCT prescribing leads.

• Three participants were excluded as they either felt unqualified to answer questions or did not return the researcher’s calls.

• Additional data were collected from two facilitated pharmacist discussion groups at which the qualitative researcher took notes.

Phase 2

• 37 participants were invited to take part including all PINCER pharmacists (each interviewed twice), 11 GPs, nine practice managers, two community pharmacists, five nurses and four prescribing leads.

• Five participants declined to participate, mainly due to time constraints.

• Further data were collected from two audio-taped pharmacist facilitated meetings. One was facilitated by the trial coordinator with the qualitative researcher taking notes. The other was designed as an informal focus group, with the qualitative researcher facilitating and the trial coordinator taking notes.

• Additional qualitative data consisted of notes of practices meetings made by pharmacists during the delivery of the PINCER intervention and six pharmacist diaries.

Phase 3

• Six focus groups were conducted with a total of 30 participants.

• Four focus groups were with practice staff from practices in PINCER intervention and Simple feedback practices including four practice managers, one assistant practice manager, ten GPs, two nurses, two data quality officers, one administrative staff, one junior doctor, and one medical student.

• One telephone focus group was conducted with PINCER pharmacists.

• One focus group with PCT staff in location 2 and one interview with a member of the PCT in location 1 (including Medical Advisors, professions involved in medicines management, and those from clinical and pharmaceutical backgrounds).

• The research team initially approached practices that were recommended by the PINCER pharmacists and those that had reduced numbers of patients in relation to the outcome measures at follow-up. However, due to a lack of willingness to participate, it was decided to widen the sampling strategy and therefore almost all practices that had participated in the trial were subsequently approached. The most commonly mentioned reason for refusing was that practices were busy and felt that they had already given up a lot of their time for the trial.