
Over three quarters of students who took part in NPA’s training courses during the first eight months of 2021 were pleased with their experience.
The association’s Learning and Development (L&D) team has analysed course evaluation forms from a sample of over 550 students who completed a range of its training courses in paper and eLearning formats between January – August 2021 to establish that 86% of students were Very Satisfied/Satisfied with their course.
The analysis also revealed the following key metrics:
- 94% of students strongly agreed/agreed that the course was beneficial to their role in community pharmacy
- 90% of students strongly agreed/agreed that they received adequate support from the NPA (via the L&D and Member Services teams
- 87% of students were very likely/likely to use the NPA for future training needs.



The NPA’s L&D pharmacists review the course evaluation ratings to ensure that the training is consistently meeting student requirements. By considering the comments provided by students, the team is able to develop the training content to improve the learning for students in the future.
Foundation training (formerly Pre-registration)
Feedback from the trainees who studied NPA’s Foundation training programme between September 2020 and June 2021 was also promising, even with the programme being delivered virtually due to the social distancing rules and the pandemic situation.
It is encouraging that:
• 81% of students rated the training materials on the NPA’s Learning Academy as Very useful/ useful
• 80% of students felt that the materials were covered Very well/well on the study days
• 80% of students rated the L&D pharmacist’s style of delivery as Very good/good.
Louise Baglole, Head of Learning and Development at the NPA, commented: “It is very important for us to understand how students find our courses. Not only because it is rewarding for the team that works so hard to deliver them, but so we improve them for future students. We continue to take steps to improve our student experience and hopefully this will be reflected in even greater satisfaction ratings going forwards.”