Pharmacy In Practice Podcast

Overview In this thought-provoking episode, Johnathan sits down with Professor Zubin Austin to explore how the traditional foundations of pharmacy — knowledge and expertise — are being disrupted by artificial intelligence, misinformation, and changing societal values. Together, they unpack what this means for pharmacists’ professional identity, leadership, and the evolving power dynamics within he...

In this episode of the Pharmacy in Practice Podcast, host Johnathan Laird and guest Chief Executive of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Paul Bennett discuss leadership challenges, the evolution of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), and the future of pharmacists. Key Discussion Points: Discussion and acknowledgement of leadership challenges, particularly in balancing diverse organisational int...

In this episode of the Pharmacy in Practice podcast, host Johnathan Laird sits down with U.S. pharmacist Steve Smoke for an insightful conversation spanning the current political climate in the U.S., the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in pharmacy, and innovative approaches to patient care. We are also joined by our fantastic new editor, Grace Lewis, and we are revealing our new podcast jingl...

Breaking the Cycle: How Pharmacists Can Lead the Fight Against Scotland's Drug Death Crisis Guest: Professor Catriona Matheson Episode Summary: In this thought-provoking episode, we sit down with Professor Catriona Matheson , an accomplished pharmacist, researcher, and advocate for harm reduction in tackling Scotland’s drug-related death crisis. With one of the highest drug-related mortality rates...

I was very pleased to be joined by Paul Forsyth and Barry Maguire to discuss the application of the collaborative care model in pharmacy. Paul, Barry and I explore how the collaborative care model may be applied to the pharmacy profession. Alienation, detachment general demoralisation and isolation are all consequences of pharmacists not feeling truly empowered to work autonomously in their role....

Georgia C. Richards DPhil (Oxon), BSc (Hons I) is a research fellow at the University of Oxford. We sat down to discuss fundamentally why healthcare, and specifically pharmacy, appears to be consistently poor at reporting, sharing and learning from significant and fatal incidents involving patients. EBM Special Study Theme (SST) Lead for the undergraduate medical school, CEBM Research Fellow, ODI...

We were delighted to welcome Yasmin Karsan to the podcast to chat all things artificial intelligence. Episode Synopsis Johnathan and Yasmin discuss the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning on pharmacy practice. They acknowledged the difficulty in fully understanding this technology and its potential impact on the industry, including the existential questions it rai...

We were delighted to be joined by Janice Perkins to chat about the current state of UK pharmacy.  Janice has over 30 years of leadership experience in community pharmacy.  She’s the former Superintendent Pharmacist of Well Pharmacy, responsible for patient safety & well-being, regulatory & professional standards and delivery of the NHS contractual framework and services. A key pa...

Leadership in Scottish Community pharmacy circles has been alive and kicking for some years now. The policy document 'The Right Medicine' published back in February 2002 was a seminal moment for Scottish community pharmacy and paved the way for the way pharmaceutical care has evolved north of the border. In the heady days just after Scottish devolution Chief Pharmaceutical Officier Bill Scott push...

Trevor Gore and I return with an introductory podcast revealing our plans for 2023. We’ll rattle through the UK pharmacy news, catch up on stories beyond pharmacy and discuss our monthly featured interview. It will hopefully be a lot of fun.

Patient group directions have traditionally been a ‘stop gap’ option, especially in the era before pharmacist independent prescribing. This debate will explore the future of patient group directions by community pharmacists. Many have lauded patient group directions as an excellent tool to extend the scope of practice of community pharmacists. However, many would say that a tick box technical proc...

The debate based on whether or not screening for atrial fibrillation should be deployed nationally in Scotland has been progressing for some years now. There is precedent for such schemes elsewhere but so far there has been no nod to such a national service in Scotland. Does the evidence stack up in favour of such scheme?  Should pharmacists be involved? If such a screening programme went nat...

The Aural Apothecary Podcast has captured the imagination of pharmacists across the land and has provided some light-hearted relief from what has been a tricky few years.  The podcast is a lighthearted take on the world of medicines, pharmacy and healthcare in the UK from Jamie, Gimmo and Steve the Chemist. They have welcomed a number of guests onto their podcast and have asked each to descri...

Getting involved in research activities can feel daunting. As pharmacists, it could be argued that we don’t prioritise research in our careers enough. This session will involve a conversation between some of the top pharmacists involved in research in the UK. With decades of experience between them, we are hopeful that they might share their insights on why research matters and also some simple, m...

Is the rise of robotics in the sector a threat or an opportunity? Learn about the range of robotic options available in pharmacy. Hear first-hand feedback about the use of the various types of robots. Understand the workflow implications. Find out about the return on investment on the various robots on the market. Understand some of the downsides of robots. Learn about the long term impact of the...

For a number of years, there has been a movement towards advanced practice for pharmacists. Our panellists for this session has been right at the sharp end of developing and championing this movement. Learning objectives from this session include: Gain an understanding of what advanced practice is. Take part in debate around why consultant level practice for pharmacists is something we as a profes...

Many pharmacists dislike failure. Research literature around this topic has characterised pharmacists as procrastinating perfectionists. If we assume these traits are well observed and we are aware of them then how do we as pharmacists ensure there is space to fail, learn and grow. Gary Redfeather Academic pharmacist Clinical, medical leadership, education and research programme lead at De Montfor...

Minna Eii is an Advanced Pharmacist Practitioner in Acute medicine. She is Vice-Chair of Sustainability at The Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists and also a Member of Pharmacy Declares (Twitter: @PharmDeclares) environmentally conscious pharmacy professionals calling for climate health/action, leadership, education, declaration, divestment. You can view all the sessions at the Future Pharmacist confe...

Ade Williams is the Superintendent Pharmacist at Bedminster Pharmacy in  Bristol, also part of the prescribing clinical team at Broadmead Medical Practice, a local GP surgery and the Associate Non-Executive Director of the North  Bristol Trust. You can view all the sessions at the Future Pharmacist conference by clicking here.  Thank you to our conference sponsors Wylie And Bisset. Find out m...

Listening to the patient voice has always been very important to us at Pharmacy in Practice.  Dr Ruth Edwards was diagnosed with breast cancer a number of years ago and since then she has courageously faced into the disease and more than that has shared her experience with considerable candour for the benefit of others, not least her pharmacist colleagues. You can view all the sessions at the...

There’s a big world out there beyond UK pharmacy and a few years ago Dr Catherine Duggan stepped out into it. As the CEO of The International Pharmaceutical Federation, she has demonstrated transformational leadership globally.  Through this work, she has championed the role of the pharmacist in many countries around the world.  We are extremely fortunate to welcome her to the inaugural...

The future of Scottish pharmacy We are very proud to be joined by the newly appointed Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for Scotland and Honorary Professor at the Robert Gordon University Alison Strath. Pharmacy in Scotland continues to thrive but what lies ahead?  Alison has for years been one of the most visionary leaders in Scottish pharmacy so it is, therefore, a pleasure to welcome her to des...

David Wightman was one of the youngest ever funeral directors in the UK. He has over 28 years of experience in his sector. We were very lucky to have some of his time to discuss his insight into death and dealing with families at the end of life. We had a good chat about the topic of death and how pharmacists might make an input when people are going through bereavement. About David David's new bu...

We were very pleased to catch up with Leyla Hannbeck. Leyla is a pharmacist and CEO of the Association of Independent Multiple Pharmacies. We chatted about all things community pharmacy and in particular explored Leyla's views on how to make working in community pharmacy a more attractive proposition for pharmacists. 

Going into this series (with an open mind) we have made a few assumptions about the current 'lie of the community pharmacy training land' and it is largely that there is very little investment in community pharmacist development above and beyond mandatory training requirements. As part of this series, we will talk to a range of key players in pharmacy with an interest in community pharmacist educa...