Pharmacy In Practice Podcast

This has been a very disruptive period in our recent history and community pharmacists across the land have been thrust to the fore. The public-facing side of community pharmacy has remained resolute but we know that behind the scenes everyone in the sector is tired. Despite this heroic effort and undoubted fatigue, we hope you can join us as we begin to look to the future specifically in the area...

Well, it has been a while since we have recorded a podcast on Pharmacy in Practice so when I was recently in touch with friend of PIP Jonathan Underhill I suggested we have a chat. And it was a fun, interesting and insightful conversation. We recorded the episode first thing on Monday morning after the England football defeat. We had a chat about Gareth Southgate's leadership and what the pharmaci...

Laura Smith CTA is a Partner at Wylie & Bisset. We kick off a new season of podcasts on Pharmacy in Practice by talking to her about IR35. We have published a number of articles recently on this topic so thought it was time to have a chat with the experts.  If you enjoy this episode and the PIP podcast please feel free to leave a review on your podcast player. It helps others to find us....

We recently had the pleasure of chatting to the founder and owner of Instant Dentist Aalok Shukla. Instant dentist is an innovative collaborative business that will help community pharmacies extend their digital impact but also deliver much earlier preventative dental care to people as they visit. We came back together to discuss the rapidly changing landscape of community pharmacy in the UK. Inst...

Ian Strachan is a community pharmacy owner contractor. He owns a number of pharmacies in England. He was the Chair of the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) between 2014 to 2018. I have wanted to chat with Ian for a while now. He really has operated at the top of UK pharmacy politics for quite some time and has led the way with many innovative initiatives through his community pharmacies. We had...

Failure to identify high-risk medication errors in patients with complex needs can have a fatal outcome, a recently published report warned. The report, published by Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB), sets out a case where a medication error with warfarin contributed to the death of a 79-year-old man. The patient had suffered a fall at home and had been admitted to hospital. An error o...

Graham Parsons is the Chief Pharmacist at Turning Point. He is a pharmacist with a wide range of experience in many aspects of pharmacy. As a specialist in Substance Misuse he has worked at both local, regional and national level (through the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, National Institute of Health and Care Excellence and Turning Point) to deliver a wide range of initiatives and polic...

I have never met a pharmacist or pharmacy technician that does not dread the letter of complaint from the GPhC dropping through the letterbox. Unfortunately in the context of overall rising numbers of complaints being made by fellow health professionals and also by the general public, I felt it important to touch base with our colleagues at Hempsons to get their views on what you can do if you fin...

I was very proud and grateful to get the chance to talk to the Chief Executive Officer of the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) Duncan Rudkin. Duncan was very generous with his time and we discussed a wide range of topics. Time was limited so we didn't get through all the topics I wanted to but we did cover lots of ground. We ran out of time and there are questions we did not get round to. Dun...

We recently had the pleasure of chatting to the founder and owner of Instant Dentist Aalok Shukla. Instant dentist is an innovative collaborative business that will help community pharmacies extend their digital impact but also deliver much earlier preventative dental care to people as they visit. Aalok commented: "Through easy and affordable access to private dental care, Instant Dentist is the f...

Darshan Negandhi is a Primary Care Network (PCN) clinical pharmacist. Previously he was Director and Superintendent Pharmacist at Lewisham Pharmacy in London. He has recently made the move to work within the PCN and is thoroughly enjoying it. We had a great chat about all things pharmacy. Darshan is very modest but has a fantastic ambition to become a pharmacist partner ina GP practice. With his t...

Dr Andrew Radley is a consultant pharmacist in public health. He works in NHS Tayside and was recently a member of a successful team who managed to eradicate hepatitis C. He recently wrote to PIP explaining how 56 community pharmacies helped to eradicate hepatitis C in NHS Tayside. It was a real pleasure to discuss Andrew's recent activity around hepatitis C and in particular how community pharmac...

David Wright, Professor of Pharmacy Practice from the School of Pharmacy at the University of East Anglia has lead an independent review of the roles and structures underpinning Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) and the Local Pharmaceutical Committees (LPCs) in England. The review has been called at a time when the community pharmacy landscape is rapidly changing and local repre...

Professor Harry McQuillan has been Chief Executive Officer of Community Pharmacy Scotland for 14 years. He has worked in a range of roles across pharmacy since qualifying as a pharmacist a number of years ago. Our paths have crossed a number of times over the years but given the exciting developments in pharmacy in Scotland, the timing of this interview was really perfect. Earlier this year was su...

Jonathan Burton is Chair of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Scottish Pharmacy Board and he has been on the frontline in community pharmacy throughout the COVID-19 crisis. We caught up to have a chat about the myriad of unprecedented things that pharmacists and their teams have had to cope with over the last few months. Changes in legislation, delays in registration of pre-registration pharmacists...

Jasraj S Matharu is the founder of the Pre-registration and Newly Qualified Pharmacist Association (PNPA). He is currently a pre-registration student and has become involved with the Pharmacist Defence Association (PDA) as a union representative. I caught up with Jas to discuss the rapidly changing landscape for pre-registration pharmacists this year in light of the COVID-19 crisis. This has been...

Dr Emily Kennedy has worked as a prescribing support pharmacist in primary care in NHS Dumfries and Galloway for 16 years and now supervises 17 pharmacists working across general practice. Her varied and very successful career so far has involved education, research and work in community pharmacy. I was interested to discuss various aspects to her current and previous roles. In particular, I was i...

Stephen Hughes MBA, MSc, MPharm, is a consultant antimicrobial pharmacist at Chelsea & Westminster NHS Foundation Trust.  We were lucky enough to catch up with him on the podcast to discuss how he and his team have adapted to working life during the pandemic. We also discussed antimicrobial pharmacy at length. A fascinating conversation. In your view what is the importance of patient-repo...

In our latest podcast, we sat down with Chief Pharmacist Yousaf Ahmad. Amongst other roles, Yousaf is currently Chief Pharmacist at Care UK and was also recently appointed to the GPhC Council. We had a wide-ranging chat about how Yousaf has coped with COVID-19 in his current role. How has your life as a pharmacist changed as a result of COVID-19? Has our over-reliance on the NHS been to our detrim...

Our guest for this podcast was Andrea James. Andrea is a regulatory lawyer advising doctors, pharmacists, vets, teachers & other highly regulated professionals. Andrea is a partner at Brabners . She leads their Professional Discipline and Healthcare Regulatory team, providing vital insight to our wider Regulatory  team and  Healthcare sector group. You can contact Andrea to engage he...

Our guest for this podcast is Andrea James. Andrea is a regulatory lawyer advising doctors, pharmacists, vets, teachers & other highly regulated professionals. She also loves animals, laughter and fairness. Andrea is a partner at Brabners . She leads their Professional Discipline and Healthcare Regulatory team, providing vital insight to our wider Regulatory  team and  Healthcare sec...

I dropped Professor Zubin Austin an email out of the blue inviting him on to join me on the PIP podcast to discuss a number of aspects of pharmacy. I was delighted to hear the 'ping' of his positive reply landing in my inbox. We got together and had a chat about what it means to be a pharmacist and explored what many in our profession believe to be an existential crisis of pharmacist identity. Pro...

Emma was a 24-year-old pharmacy graduate. She had two degrees, was a high achiever and was making the most of her life. Sadly Emma took an overdose of both propranolol and citalopram. Emma called an ambulance, but her condition quickly worsened. Despite resuscitation efforts from both paramedics and medical staff in the hospital she was transferred to, Emma sadly died. The purpose of this pod...

I recently wrote an article about the Scottish NHS Pharmacy First service but I wanted to find out more so I got in touch with Director of Operations at Community Pharmacy Scotland, Matt Barclay. He was good enough to take time out from the ambitious schedule of NHS Pharmacy First engagement evenings to have a chat about what the new service might mean for community pharmacists in Scotland. Before...

Sometimes you have to try something completely different to uncover new perspectives on age-old problems. The profession of pharmacy as we know it today has made huge strides since Jacob Bell founded the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain in 1841. This podcast series will explore where we go next as a profession. We will find the most interesting and forward-thinking people with an interest i...