Pharmacy In Practice Podcast

Alyssa Stanlake is a Canadian pharmacy technician who works as an operation manager in a community pharmacy in Whistler. Alyssa works for Pier Health , a community pharmacy which specialises in supporting people who have an addiction and mental health problems. She was awarded the honour of Canadian Pharmacy Technician of the Year 2018 after being nominated by her employer. In the relatively short...

A few years ago our guest Mark Leaning had viral meningitis. This, unfortunately, resulted in him subsequently suffering from regular seizures. These seizures were treated unsuccessfully with prescription medication. He discovered medicinal cannabis and it changed his life by easing his symptoms. During this podcast, I explore what the current reality is with medicinal cannabis. We have a robust d...

Ade Williams is the lead pharmacist at Bedminster Pharmacy, a Healthy Living Pharmacy in South Bristol. He actively works to increase public understanding of community pharmacy’s work and roles within the NHS whilst also highlighting ways to broaden access to the extensive expertise offered by the whole pharmacy team. He was good enough to join me on th...

Pharmacy student Regan McCahill was recently elected President of the BPSA. Regan was kind enough to join us for what turned out to be a really interesting chat. We cover the following areas in the podcast: What pharmacy students want. The five-year university degree proposals and whether pharmacists should qualify as independent prescribers. Her view on pharmacists and pharmacy students' standard...

Stephen-Andrew Whyte is an advanced clinical practitioner, has an interest in child health and is an all-around educationalist. We are also extremely proud to have the benefit of Stephen's insight as a member of the Pharmacy in Practice editorial board. Stephen will be joining us in Scotland later this year to support the running of the new Pharmacy in Practice support days for pharmacists working...

Fiona Headridge is a specialist dietetic practitioner for Coeliac Disease. She works for the NHS in Tayside. We caught up to talk about all aspects of the Scottish community pharmacy led gluten-free service. Fiona has been involved in the Scottish gluten-free service since its inception. In this podcast we discuss all aspects of the service including her advice for community pharmacists running th...

Authors Hindi AMK, Schafheutle EI and Jacobs S were involved in the publication of a qualitative study recently with the following title: Community pharmacy integration within the primary care pathway for people with long-term conditions: a focus group study of patients’, pharmacists’ and GPs’ experiences and expectations. Link to paper: here. Link to Policy piece: here. In this podcast, I ask one...

This week in Nottingham the British Pharmaceutical Students' Association are holding their annual conference. The theme this year is global pharmacy. Tonight we were joined by Andrew Moy (Northern Area Co-ordinator), Rhys Llewellyn (Western Area Co-ordinator) and Kweku Bimpong (Publications Officer). to give us an update on day one of the conference. We will be podcasting from the conference throu...

A recent study led by pharmacy technicians in Australia saved thousands of dollars by preventing waste of medicines. The pharmacy technicians achieved this by deploying ward-based educational sessions to the multidisciplinary team. The findings highlighted the importance of pharmacy technicians and provided evidence for an advanced scope pharmacy technician ward role to reduce pharmaceutical wasta...

Due to a shortage of emergency department doctors and nurses, hospitals have started to employ pharmacists who have additional clinical skills, known as Emergency Department Pharmacist Practitioners, to help deliver services. A recently published study sought to describe, compare and define the Emergency Department Pharmacist Practitioner role. Setting UK emergency departments. The study concluded...

There is little doubt that the profession of pharmacy in Scotland is thriving. We were extremely proud to share some time catching up with Rose-Marie Parr, the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for Scotland.  We had a great conversation about progress towards the ambition of 'Achieving Excellence in Pharmaceutical care'. We discussed the myriad of opportunities emerging for pharmacists in Scotland...

Hemant Patel, FRPharmS, DipPharmacol, M.I.Mg is the secretary at North East London Local Pharmaceutical Committee and four-time former president of the RPSGB. He was kind enough to take some time on a Saturday morning to catch up on the podcast. We discussed his vision for pharmacy and delved into a project he is involved with in North London which features the creation of High street clinics...

Cathy Geeson was the first pharmacist to receive a Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). Her research involved the development of a prediction tool to help hospital pharmacists identify patients at highest risk of preventable medication-related problems. The newly developed Medicines Optimisation Assessment (MOAT) tool has potential to predic...

There is no doubt that Claire Thompson is a leading light in the pharmaceutical world. She was good enough to take time out from running her business, Agility Health Tech , to have a chat about where she has been and what her plans for the future are. We discussed Claire's role as a leading woman in science, sexism and her Northern Irish heritage. Claire has more than 15 years’ experience in the P...

 In this podcast, we catch up with Ian Rudd who is the Director of Pharmacy in NHS Highland. Our chat explores how the geography of the highlands fo Scotland present barriers but also opportunities for pharmacy practice. We also delve into Ian's early thoughts on the new Scottish pharmacotherapy service. Ian Rudd has been Director of Pharmacy in NHS Highland since 2014. Prior to tha...

Emma Davies joined me on the podcast this week. We talked in depth about bullying in pharmacy, leadership and tried to avoid talking about Brexit. Emma is an advanced Pharmacist Practitioner and has worked in pain management for around 12 years. She developed her interest in supported self-management whilst working in the Southampton Pain Service. Currently working in South Wales, Emma provid...

One of the co-authors of the recently published Pharmacy Technician report Gregory Lawton was good enough to talk to us about the report now that it has been published in its entirety.  If you are interested in the report but don't have time to read the 300 odd pages then this podcast will help give you a summary of the key issues covered. Our wide-ranging conversation covers many aspects of...

The Pharmacists Defence Association (PDA), recently announced the organisation’s plan to test a new model for community pharmacy in Dudley later this year. The pilot is set to include eight to ten community pharmacies. The plan is for the model to produce an 'outcomes based' model for community pharmacy. The PDA also announced a campaign to promote the role of the pharmacist and challeng...

The Commonwealth Pharmacy Association have said they are very excited to announce the UK Department of Health and Social Care’s Fleming Fund will support 12 selected health partnerships’ antimicrobial stewardship initiatives to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia. The funding is being provided by the  UK Department of Health and Social Care’s Fleming F...

Professor Zaheer-Ud-Din Babar is a Professor in Medicines and Healthcare at the Department of Pharmacy, School of Applied Sciences at the University of Huddersfield. We were extremely proud to welcome him on to the podcast to discuss his remarkable new book which is an encyclopaedia of pharmacy. Professor Babar is globally recognised for his research in pharmaceutical policy and practice, includin...

FAPhA. Dr. Lawrence “LB” Brown is Associate Dean of Student and Academic Affairs and a Full Professor in the school of pharmacy, where he will be responsible for admissions, curriculum, and progression of students. Prior to joining the School of Pharmacy’s Administrative team, he was an Associate Professor of Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Tennessee College of Pharmacy in...

Dr Cathrine Edgeworth is a consultant  clinical pharmacist with over 25 years NHS experience. She now runs her own aesthetics business. She is also heavily involved in the charity that supports chronic regional pain syndrome (CRPS). We talked about the merits of being a consultant pharmacist and all things aesthetics.

We were extremely lucky to be joined by Mark Pitt the Director of Defence Services, PDA union. Mark spent 20 years working in community pharmacy progressing through various store/area management roles to a senior head office position for one of the pharmacy multiples. Mark joined the PDA union shortly after it was formed and also sits as a lay member for the Employment Tribunal Service. We ta...

I had the pleasure of chatting to Superintendent pharmacist Philip Galt. Philip is managing Director of Lindsay and Gilmour community pharmacy chain and is also heavily involved in supporting the wider profession on a number of fronts.  We chatted about the opportunities and challenges for Scottish community pharmacy. We also discussed the now stark difference between community pharmacy...

I was very proud to welcome airline captain and medical doctor Niall Downey on to the podcast to talk about all things risk related in pharmacy. We talked particularly about what pharmacy, and healthcare in a wider sense, can learn from the aviation industry. Niall is an airline captain, Doctor, TEDx Speaker, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and error management trainer. Former,...