Pharmacy In Practice Podcast

Gary Paragpuri is the former editor of the Chemist and Druggist magazine. He is now CEO of the specialist consultancy firm called Hub and Spoke Innovations. Hub and Spoke Innovations aims to help pharmacists and dispensing GPs grow their businesses and provide a better service for their patients through technology. Their flagship product is the Pharmaself24, which is a vending machine for prescrip...

Greg Lawton is a pharmacist specialising in patient and medicines safety, staffing, data protection, privacy and healthcare policy. We were lucky to catch up with Greg to have an in-depth conversation about dispensing errors in pharmacy. There a few things that strike fear into hearts of pharmacists more than making a dispensing error. Making a dispensing error is still a criminal offence and can...

Francesca Aaen is a pharmacist consultant and runs her consultancy called Aaen Care . Aaen Care delivers medicines and healthcare-related training, consultancy and advice to both private and public sector providers of health and social care services across the UK. Francesca has over the years had a number of NHS roles in care services and also throughout the NHS. She is also a member of the Pharma...

Gavin Birchall is a pharmacist, designer and marketer who has created, led and marketed businesses at senior level and carried out the first research into the brand of pharmacy on the planet. Having spent 15 years in community pharmacy, practising in both independent and multiple owned pharmacies, Gavin has worked in academia, primary care and representation. He was instrumental in setting up a 21...

Emma Hartley is a freelance journalist from London. She wrote a story recently on the topic of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) shortages. The article examined the on-going HRT shortages and sought to find answers. This problem has had a significant impact on people suffering symptoms of the menopause. Emma has delved into all aspects of the supply of HRT in the UK and beyond. She has covered iss...

Dr Ollie Hart is a GP partner, Primary Care Network (PCN) Clinical Director and also owns Peak Health Coaching. Ollie Practises in Sheffield and I met him recently for the first time at a meeting in London. We got talking and went for a coffee after the meeting. Unfortunately, we ran out of time as I had to catch a flight but we agreed to chat again soon. He didn't bargain that said chat would be...

We recently ran a story about a new report that highlighted the fact that poorly implemented ePMA (electronic prescribing and medicines administration) systems can result in potentially fatal medication errors. We were very fortunate to catch up with Scott Hislop and Helen Jones, two of the investigators, on the podcast to discuss the series of events that ultimately culminated in the sad passing...

Dolly Sud is a Specialist Mental Health Pharmacist and PhD student. She is also a member of Cochrane and College of Mental Health Pharmacy. We caught up with Dolly on the PIPcast. Dolly gave us a fascinating insight into her role as a Specialist Mental Health Pharmacist and also her views on some of the wider issues in pharmacy.

We were delighted to be joined by Miles Briggs MSP on the PIP podcast. Miles is a Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party MSP for Lothian. He is involved in quite a number of cross-party committees and notably for pharmacists he a member of the Health and Sport Committee. You can find out more about Mile's voting record, his recent speeches, recent questions that he has asked of the Scottish gove...

Emma Davies recently took over as host of the PIP podcast and was kind enough to interview editor Johnathan Laird. It was a really interesting conversation and below are a handful of the questions Emma asked. Why did you do pharmacy? What are the selling points of pharmacy? Do pharmacists work autonomously? Are community pharmacists ready for the general practice pharmacy role? How important is cr...

We were proud to welcome pharmacist Anita White who is President of the National Association of Women Pharmacists (NAWP). We discussed all things pharmacy but particularly talked about the history and the future of the NAWP as well as some insights into Anita's esteemed career. The topics covered in the podcasts are as follows; Were you penalised in terms of your career because you chose to stay a...

I was genuinely humbled to catch up with Alastair McMurray who is undertaking one of the most epic challenges I have come across. He is undertaking a mammoth Sportathon for three charities over the months of August and September this year. In completing this he is hoping to raise £100,000 to split equally between Bloodwise, Bowel Cancer UK and the Brain Tumour Charity. After raising over £30,000 r...

Graham Thoms has recently taken on the role of CEO at PharmaDoctor. He has had a very interesting career in the pharmaceutical industry and was a pioneer of pharmacy-led flu vaccination services. Our conversation covered Graham's career to date but we also spoke about his work these days at PharmaDoctor. Graham is a great advocate for community pharmacy and particularly the delivery of private ser...

Robert Liddington was kind enough to join us on the podcast to talk about his extremely interesting career so far. Robert spent almost 18 years in the army as a pharmacist and more recently has taken roles in the MHRA and also the Care Quality Commission. He took us through his experience in the army and he shared his insights about how pharmacists can have a very interesting and fulfilling career...

Dr Hayley Gorton is Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice at The University of Huddersfield. She is a community pharmacist by background but in recent years she has developed a research interest in suicide prevention particularly in community pharmacy.. We were lucky that she came on to talk about her career so far and her work in this area to date. Hayley has only been qualified for five years but...

I was recently invited to chat about pharmacist prescribing by an Australian colleague called Tyson Clarke. Tyson is CEO of retail training software company called Voista Pty Ltd. and has an interest in pharmacy in Australia. The context of our chat is the on-going animosity between pharmacists and GPs in Australia. Tyson interviewed me to find out more about how pharmacist independent prescribing...

The SIGN/BTS asthma guideline was recently updated. This update will have an impact on how many healthcare professionals care for people with asthma across the UK. We were fortunate to have the two co-chairs, Dr James Paton and Dr John White, on the podcast to talk us through the key updates in the guideline and some of the messages that they feel are important to communicate with pharmacists. Cou...

Professor Claire Anderson Chair of the English Pharmacy Board was kind enough to join us on the podcast to talk about her exciting new role in the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and also some interesting topics of the day. Below are some of the areas we covered. What have been the highlights of your illustrious career so far? You are involved in a project in Kenya. Could you tell us about this work...

Jonathan Burton has worked in community pharmacy all his professional life. He founded and remains co-owner of The Right Medicine Pharmacy in Scotland. He has championed community pharmacy over the years and has applied his independent pharmacist prescribing qualification specifically in community pharmacy. He has been a Royal Pharmaceutical Society board member in Scotland for the last number of...

Andrew Evans is the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for Wales. At Pharmacy in Practice, we were extremely proud to welcome Andrew on to the podcast to talk about all things pharmacy. We have outlined the questions we asked Andrew below. We really enjoyed the conversation and enjoyed hearing all about some of the exciting developments happening in Wales at the moment. How does one achieve the role of...

Ewan Maule is Head of Medicines Optimisation at Sunderland Clinical Commissioning Group and has also recently been elected as the Vice President of the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists. We had a great conversation about how pharmacy is changing rapidly in the UK at the moment. The topics covered and questions I asked are outlined below. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed creating...

David Kološić is an Associate Solution Consultant at Veeva Healthcare. This podcast is all about David's career so far and the advice he would give others to achieve what he has but also about what community pharmacy can learn from the health tech market. We talk about David's career to date. His career so far has been unconventional and actually although extremely successful now he dropped out of...

Pharmacist Jonathan Underhill is a Medicines Clinical Adviser at the NICE Medicines and Prescribing Programme. He is also currently Medicines Optimisation Lead at Keele University and a member of the scientific committee for the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists.  He was good enough to take some time out to talk all things pharmacy. Jonathan is particularly interested in evidence-b...

Andre Yeung is a pharmacist, NHS England Network Chair and architect of the Digital Minor Ailments Referral service. By his own admission, he is on a mission to make stuff better for patients. He was recently elected to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society English Pharmacy Board. He topped the poll in England with 941 member votes. He was good enough to join me on the podcast.  If you prefer to n...

Sam Falconer is a community pharmacist. His current role is that of pharmacy manager at Kilwinning’s Townhead Pharmacy. Sam and his team are carving out a reputation for innovation and excellence in the delivery of pharmaceutical care a the heart of their community. Sam is an independent prescriber and he has been using this qualification to deliver a common clinical conditions service. This servi...