[12] Sefton Primary Care Trust (PCT), part of Greater Merseyside, has extremes of deprivation,

with a higher obesity prevalence in less affluent households and a higher proportion of obesity among males than England as a whole.[13] The Trust’s obesity strategy, Lose Weight: Gain Life,[14] recognises that all primary care staff, including community pharmacists, frequently encounter people who would benefit from losing weight, although at present the Trust does not support community pharmacy weight-management programmes. Mapping of current service provision is an essential part of needs assessment and an important stage for PCTs in the development of a novel service. Determining the views of the general public at whom a novel service will be targeted is also an essential EX 527 prerequisite to service development. A

variety of market research methods have been used to obtain the views of the general public towards potential new health-related services, including postal questionnaires, telephone interviews and face-to-face interviews. Mixed methods approaches using all three techniques are common among academic marketing studies.[15] While all can suffer from low response rates, they form an important part of needs assessments for service development. For this study face-to-face interviews carried out in the street were used. AZD0530 manufacturer This is a standard market research technique which has grown in popularity, being second only to phone surveys in usage.[16] The application of these interviews in the study of issues relating to both pharmacy and public health is increasing.[17–19] They have the advantage CYTH4 over postal questionnaires

of rapid data collection and purposive targeting of respondents with desirable demographic characteristics. All market research methods are valuable in that the views of the full spectrum of a population, including so-called hard-to-reach individuals, for example those with a low literacy level, can be obtained. Face-to-face interviews have the additional advantage over postal questionnaires of minimising this latter problem, known to be a major factor within Sefton PCT. Methods which target users of existing health-related services are likely to be less valuable for assessing the views of potential consumers of services. This study was carried out to determine the views of a sample of the general public in one PCT on their knowledge of and preferences for weight-management services, together with a survey of the extent to which community pharmacies in the same PCT have the opportunity to and currently do provide services supporting weight management. Approval was obtained from Liverpool John Moores University Research Ethics Committee. Two questionnaires were devised: one for the general public and the other for community pharmacists.