Table 5 Illustrative quotes from focus groups for identified resource mechanisms

Practice

‘practicing more with the actors and just practicing more with communication skills in general’

‘Thinking on your feet and just kind of, you know, winging it in….a structured way but good in that sense, and a good practice for a real life situation’

Authenticity

‘And it's more, it's kind of more, based on real life kind of scenario...like this is a typical day in day that you expect in a pharmacy’

‘You weren't expecting, or you just had no idea what was going to be thrown at you, in terms of the scenarios.’

‘I think having somebody that you don't know, so any sort of simulation, actors or patients does help to mirror that real-life situation’

Feedback

‘Any feedback they had, if even if it were, if even if it wasn't saying oh well done, you did this really well, it was delivered in a more constructive way’

‘you really got to pick everything apart and you were getting different people's kind of opinions on how they saw a scenario go’

‘The different perspectives…rather than how you felt subjectively it went. You were getting different angles on…perhaps you could have communicated this in a better way or from the patients in particular; I thought that was really good because they were able to say how they felt in general about how people were actually talking to them’

Time

‘It's good practice to learn how to focus your point and deliver key messages...ideally it'd be great if you went through everything with every patient but you'll only get through about 10 patients in the day’

‘No, it's not practical, but at the same time it's good practice as much as you like not rush it or have it timed but like you don't want to be spending like an hour with every single patient.’

Videos

‘The videos at the end…helped you kind of look at…in retrospect how you performed in the videos like what areas you can improve on and why you can't improve’