The Aural Apothecary

Did you know that according to the OECD, a fifth of healthcare costs adds no value to patient care? This, along with the drive for shared decision making is the drive behind Scotland’s ‘Realistic Medicine’ campaign. We chat to Dr Catherine Labinjoh, Consultant Cardiologist and National Clinical Advisor to the Realistic Medicine programme about the campaign. One of the main aims of Realistic Medici...

It takes a special sort of person to work in paediatric care. We chat to Alison Tennant, Chief Pharmacist at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Trust about the risks and rewards of working with children and their medicines. Parents going home with bags of bottles, the difficulties of shared decision making and instead of DNA we have DNB - Did not Bring. A joyous and fascinating episode where we...

How do you influence the prescribing habits of an entire country? This is the task of NHS England’s National Clinical Director of Prescribing Professor Tony Avery. We chat to Tony about this new, groundbreaking leadership role and techniques used to influence and improve prescribing practice across a whole nation. In addition to this role Tony is a practising GP, a professor of primary health care...

A lively chat as we are joined by sexual health pharmacist Sally Kneath. Sally busts the myths that often surround people living with HIV and details how it is managed today - perhaps not how you would imagine. We reflect on the impact of the stigma caused by the 80’s ‘Don’t die of ignorance’ campaigns that still exists today and how we need to move toward seeing HIV alongside any other chronic co...

We are joined by Professor Bapu Jena. Physician, economist, author of ‘Random Acts of Medicine’ and host of the superb ‘Freakonomics MD’ podcast, we explore with Bapu the concept of ‘natural experimentation’. How might a marathon be bad for your health? Why might you be safer not seeing a cardiologist after a heart attack? What is the impact of striking doctors on health outcomes? Bapu is Professo...

For our first episode of series 6 we are delighted to be joined by former BBC reporter Rory Cellen-Jones. As well as a successful career in journalism, Rory is also part of “Movers and Shakers’ - the hit podcast about life with Parkinsons. Rory was diagnosed with Parkinsons in 2019 and has spent recent years investigating the role technology can play in improving the treatment of Parkinson's disea...

Pull up a chair and join the Three Apothecaries around the fire for our end-of-year chat with friends and colleagues Clare Howard and Jonathan Underhill to discuss another dramatic year. What will 2023 be remembered for? Was it the Year of Community Pharmacy or of Artificial Intelligence? Who would win in a fight – ChatGPT or a clinical pharmacist? How should NICE determine Quality of Life? And wh...

A pivotal figure in the development of Evidence Based Practice and an inspiration to many, it was our real pleasure this week to chat to Professor Neal Maskrey. A retired GP and former director of the National Prescribing Centre, Neal has been a key figure in the way clinical evidence is presented and used in practice. He tells us about his new book, Rebalancing Medicine, where he shares his story...

How do we manage Chronic Pain? This week we talk to Louise Trewern of Living Well with Pain, who has herself lived with chronic pain since childhood. After years of strange illnesses, infections and persistent pain Louise was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and prescribed a stupor-inducing cocktail of opioids, antidepressants and benzodiazepines. We chat to Louise about how she discovered a different...

Our new website is now live - www.theauralapothecary.com A fantastic chat this week we talk to Paul Woodgate who as well as having Type II Diabetes and Parkinson’s disease is an advocate for patients in the design of healthcare services. We hear how this important role has evolved from being the oft ignored voice at the back of the room to being a central part of service design. Our micro-discussi...

A truly joyful patient story this week when we chat to Louise Jenkins. Cystic Fibrosis is a condition that encompasses your whole life. Louise talks to us about growing up with the condition, balancing the constant need for treatment with trying to grow up normally. Louise describes being ill with CF as ‘like having a second job’, and tells us the transformative effect a change in drugs has had on...

Our new website is now live - www.theauralapothecary.com ‘Assume I know nothing’ - we are joined today by Dr Liz O’Riordan about the impact having the very condition she was trained to treat had on her, both as a patient and a doctor. Liz is a renowned author, international speaker and host of the fantastic podcast ‘Don’t Ignore the Elephant’ in which Liz talks about the stuff no one else will. As...

Our new website is now live - www.theauralapothecary.com We are joined today by former police officer and creator of cognitive hypnotherapy Trevor Silvester. But what is Cognitive Hypnotherapy and how does it work? We discuss the role of alternative therapies such as this in holistic models of care. Trevor also takes us through his personal mind-bending journey into the world of psychedelics. This...

Our new website is now live - www.theauralapothecary.com We are joined in this episode by Rachel Power, Chief Executive of the Patients Association - an independent patient charity campaigning for improvements in health and social care for patients. Are patient information leaflets best used as wallpaper? We discuss the concerns that patients are bringing to the Patients Association which include...

As a prelude to our next episode, where we discuss the issue of pain and opioid dependency, we are replaying a classic from the Aural Apothecary Archive. This is particularly timely as this is also the month that guidance on ‘ Optimising personalised care for adults prescribing medicines associated with dependence or withdrawal symptoms ’ has been issued in England. We will pick up on this guidanc...

The Godfather of Shared Decision Making (SDM) has spoken, so listen up! (apologies for his microphone quality though) Professor Alf Collins is currently NHS England’s Clinical Director for personalised care but he was a community consultant in pain management for many years and worked with the Health Foundation helping lead applied research and implementation programmes in person centred care. We...

As a prelude to the next Series 5 episode with Professor Alf Collins, the Godfather of Shared Decision Making, we have dug into the Aural Apothecary Archives and found one of our best episodes about the importance of having meaningful conversations with patients about medicines. Enjoy first time around if a new listener, or even more second time around if a loyal fan … Jonathan Underhill is a cons...

What is more important? Quality of life or length of life? A question that our guest, Deborah Duval, faces on a daily basis. Deborah is Managing Editor at Kidney Care UK and lead for www.kidneykitchen.org - a place where eating is de-medicalised and where celebrity chefs cook kidney-patient friendly meals. She shares with us her experiences of being a recipient of multiple transplants and how she...

We’re back! This series we are focussing on the patient and their experiences of medicines and we start with a cracker! Graham brings his expertise working for the pharmaceutical industry and as a pharmacologist (and one of the people behind the superdrug Tamoxifen) to helping people understand and use their medicines through the fantastic website www.meandmymedicines.org.uk . We chat to Graham ab...

Join the Three Apothecaries and some old friends as they gather around the fire and reflect on the year gone by. Jamie, Gimmo and Steve the Chemist are joined by friends of the show Clare Howard and Jonathan Underhill to discuss the highs and lows of 2022. Starting with COVID and ending with Strep A, what a year for healthcare and medicines it has been. We discuss the role that community pharmacy...

For this special episode the Apothecaries are joined by Professor Phil Howard ,OBE, to discuss Antimicrobial Resistance and what we can all do to tackle it. Phil is well placed to discuss this with us as the Antimicrobial Stewardship Lead for the North-East & Yorkshire region of England and the former President of the British Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. World Antimicrobial Awareness Wee...

What do football and pharmaceutical science have in common?! In this, our final episode of series four, we go out on a high chatting to multi-award winning scientist, entrepreneur and philanthropist Professor Claire Thompson. Not only is Claire the Founder and CEO of Agility Life Sciences, a drug formulation development company, she is a former footballer who in 2020 launched Girls in Football Tea...

In this episode we talk to Dr Ben Allen. A GP partner and Clinical Director for Primary Care in Sheffield, Ben is passionate about empowering patients to understand the health system in order to improve their experience of care. His main area of interest is exploring how people can reach their full potential through building high performing teams. You can find our more about Ben Allen on Twitter;...

Something different again this episode - we chat to Dave Murdoch - an Advanced Paramedic Practitioner with over 28 years of experience. Dave has worked in a wide variety of prehospital settings; ambulances, cars, helicopters as well as Urgent Care Centres, Emergency Departments and General Practice surgeries, and almost 3 years of medical development work in a post-Soviet medical system. His work...

We chat to Professor Debi Bhattacharya - Professor of Behavioural Medicine at the University of Leicester and a primary care pharmacist. Debi led on research into a behaviour change toolkit designed to reduce opioid prescribing and is now actively involved in a programme designed to implement this at a systems level. https://www.uea.ac.uk/groups-and-centres/patient-care-group/chronic-opioid-use-in...