Abstract Submission Guidance
Abstracts related to the conference theme of ‘Following the science: generating and implementing evidence to improve health’ are strongly encouraged. Whilst this theme is quite inclusive in nature and should facilitate submission of a variety of research topics, abstracts pertaining to any aspect of health services research relevant to medicines or pharmacy are also appropriate.
Abstracts are welcome including qualitative and quantitative research projects, literature reviews (with robust searching/methodology – e.g. systematic, scoping, realist, etc.), trials, secondary analyses of datasets, mixed methods studies, service evaluations and audits. All abstracts must include a description and discussion of results obtained. Abstracts that describe research protocols or preliminary work in progress are not permitted.
The HSRPP abstract adjudicating committee encourages researchers and practitioners of all levels of experience to submit an abstract for the HSRPP Conference 2026. As well as receiving submissions from experienced researchers, we are particularly keen to encourage those early career researchers, including:
- PhD students, other research students, and junior research staff,
- Practitioners new to research,
- Practitioners who have investigated new innovations or tried out new ways of doing things in practice,
- Practitioners who have evaluated new services.
The use of Large Language Models (LLM)/generative artificial intelligence in the development of abstracts must be documented in the Methods. LLM cannot be credited as an author, as authorship requires that the author be accountable for the submitted/published work, and artificial intelligence cannot fulfil this requirement. Authors listed on the Abstract must review the content generated by the LLM and take full responsibility for it, as they would for any other content within the Abstract.
Accepted abstracts will be published in an online supplement of the International Journal of Pharmacy Practice.
Submission Details
You must complete your abstract using the template which is provided in the Abstract Format section below, and upload it in its original Microsoft Word (.docx) format no later than Tuesday 23 September 2025 at 11.59pm (UK time).
Abstracts will be judged using these abstract judging criteria. Please review these carefully before uploading your abstract.
Your abstract will be judged anonymously by the committee reviewers.
When uploading your abstract, you will be asked to provide all author names, affiliations (e.g. in the form of department name, institution name, city, country), and the submitting author’s email address, but these details will not be provided to those judging the abstracts.
Please ensure that the abstract does not contain any identifying details in the body text or reference list (e.g. instead of saying ‘Cardiff & Vale NHS Trust’, say ‘a large NHS trust’).
During the abstract submission process, you will be asked the following questions:
- Whether your research has received ethical approval or justifying why you believe ethical approval was not required, e.g. ‘Ethical approval was not required because the study evaluates existing practice and so is considered a service evaluation/audit comparing practice against accepted clinical guidelines. The organisation’s research and audit department has confirmed and registered the study as a service evaluation/audit (Ref no: XXX)’. This means you do not need to include information on ethical approval in the abstract
- Whether you prefer to present your research as an oral presentation, poster presentation, or either. However, the conference committee will make the final decision on mode of presentation. Please note that there will be prizes for oral and poster presentation categories
- Whether you would like to present your research as a rapid-fire presentation if you are awarded a poster presentation; this would consist of a 1-minute oral presentation comprising a maximum of one slide to describe the research that may encourage those to view the poster
All applicants will be informed of the adjudicating committee’s decision by 7 November 2025. For those abstracts requiring further revision before acceptance, authors will be asked to to re-submit an abstract with the required revisions by 24 November 2025.
In the week commencing 5 January 2026:
- Authors of abstracts requiring revision will receive a final decision.
- All authors of accepted abstracts will be informed whether their abstract has been selected for an oral presentation or poster presentation. If an abstract has been selected as a poster presentation, authors will be informed if their poster has also been selected for a rapid-fire presentation (if authors had requested this)
At least one author on accepted abstracts must:
- Register for the conference by 2 March 2026 (as abstracts must be finalised with the journal)
- Attend the conference to present the research
If you have any queries, please contact us.
Abstract Format
Please ensure that you make use of the abstract template available below.
Please use all the following headings to format your abstract:
- Introduction
- Aim
- Methods
- Results
- Conclusion
The overall word count for these sections (including the section headings) must not exceed 500 words, or 350 words with one table (in editable format, not as an image) or one figure (either of which should not be too large; please refer to previously published abstracts in the IJPP supplement for examples of appropriately sized figures and tables as shown here). Text in the title, any table, any figure, and up to two references are not included in the word count. Photographs or similar images are not permitted.
Abstracts should use Arial font size 11, and have the section headings in bold on the same line as the text associated with that heading (e.g. Introduction: Medication safety is…).
Please read the abstract judging criteria to ensure you meet the requirements for each section.
References
Up to two references in the Vancouver referencing style are permitted and should be included under a heading entitled ‘References’ at the end of the abstract. Any reference(s) must be cited in the text and should be denoted using numbers in square brackets and set in superscript after the punctuation, e.g. …in this study.[1]
If there is/are any reference(s) that may identify the study authors, the superscripted citation (e.g. [1]) should still be included in the abstract text, with the following in the References section: ‘Reference details not provided as may identify authors’. This is to help maintain anonymity when judging; if the abstract is accepted, the full reference details will be requested and included for publication.
If there are 3 or fewer authors, list all author names. If there are 4 or more authors, then use the first three author names, followed by et al. with a period, in italics.
Journal reference example: Malet-Larrea A, Arbillaga L, Gastelurrutia MÁ, et al. Defining and characterising age-friendly community pharmacies: a qualitative study. Int J Pharm Pract 2018; 27(1): 25-33.
Book reference example: Michie S, Atkins L, West R. The Behaviour Change Wheel: a guide to designing interventions. Great Britain: Silverback Publishing, 2014.