The Aural Apothecary

We chat to Dr Wasim Baqir - a senior pharmacist from the Pharmacy Integration Programme at NHS England. Prior to this he led the national Medicines Optimisation in Care Homes scheme for NHS England. He currently works across a number of areas (primary care networks, health inequalities, community pharmacy, overprescribing and integrated care systems) supporting the national pharmacy integration pr...

We have a special treat for you this week as we share the recording of our live show at this year’s Clinical Pharmacy Congress. And as an added bonus you get two guests for the price of one! Our first guest is Kulpna Daya. Kulpna is a pharmacy technician and co-founder of Pharmacy Technicians of Colour. As an educational specialist, Kulpna has extensive clinical experience which she utilises to pr...

This week we welcome Pharmacy's own National Treasure Professor Mahendra Patel OBE. Mahendra is a multi-award winning pharmacist and academic with professorial roles in a number of universities. He has led research into health inequalities, diabetes and COVID amongst many others. He is a Fellow of both NICE and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and a recipient of their prestigious Charter Medal. He...

A real pleasure this week to welcome one the Pharmaceutical Journal's ‘Women to Watch in 2022’ Nkiruku Umuaru. Nikkie is currently the Pharmacy Foundation Head of School, Interim Education and Training Lead at Health Education England as well Postgraduate Pharmacy Lead at the University of Herefordshire. We chat to Nikkie about medicines in older people, and in particular how to have good conversa...

In this week’s episode we are thrilled to be joined by Delyth James. Professor James is Professor of Health Psychology in Pharmacy Practice at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Delyth is a pharmacist with experience of training and education and working as a renal pharmacist in hospitals across the world. Delyth’s main area of research is ‘Health Psychology and Medicines use. Paul is away this week...

In this week’s episode we talk about Prescribing in Prison. We are joined by Rebecca Hunter who as well as being a prison pharmacist is a clinical leadership fellow working in Health Education and Improvement Wales. Rebecca is passionate about the role that pharmacy has in supporting those in prison environments as well as improving health inequalities. We discuss the challenges posed by prescribi...

Welcome back for Series 4. We are joined by Consultant Geriatrician and bestselling author Dr Lucy Pollock. As Lucy tells us - we all become old if we are lucky. But how do we deal with it - as people and as health professionals? We chat about Lucy’s experience in working with the elderly and the importance of honesty, humour and shared decision making. We discuss ‘The Book about Getting Older (fo...

In this, our first ever live show we talk to our first ever patient! Jamie Brewster is an architect with the DB3 group and shares with us, and our live audience, his experiences as a cancer patient. It is a heartfelt story peppered with humour and pathos, and one that offers healthcare professionals plenty of food for thought. As usual with The Aural Apothecary Jamie shares with us his Desert Isla...

It is the end of Series 3 and we go out on a high! We are joined by Dr Pete Turton. Pete qualified from Liverpool with a degree in medicine and a Masters degree in uterine physiology. He is currently undergoing dual training in both anaesthesia and intensive care. He has also tried his hand as a stand-up comedian and is one of the stars of ‘The Placemat’ podcast. We chat about the perils and pitfa...

A fascinating episode this week where we talk to Tracy Brown – an award winning pharmacist working in Glasgow. As well as running primary care pain clinics Tracy runs the Pain Teach and Treat Programme. We chat about the difficulties of supporting people with chronic pain along with the concept of Analgesic Stewardship. As ever we throw a bit of behaviour change into the mix. Our micro-discussion...

We go slightly left of field in this week's episode when we talk to award winning clinical negligence lawyer Stephen Webber. Stephen has been involved in many medicines related cases and talks to us about the Law of Tort and how healthcare professionals can better manage risk. We chat about recent proposals to replace the negligence system with one of ‘no-fault’ and why it might not be such a good...

We are joined in this episode by Lisa Green. Lisa is a medicines safety specialist with a pharmacy career spanning 20 years and was named as one of the Pharmaceutical Journal's ‘Women to Watch’ in 2020. Aside from her day job as Head of Pharmacy Operations for one of Europe’s largest mental health charities, Lisa is a farm and animal health consultant with a Masters Degree in Veterinary Pharmacy....

Ho Ho Ho and a Joyeux Noel to you all. Join us for our end-of-year Christmas Special in which we are joined by previous guests, friends and colleagues for a cosy (and virtual) fireside festive chat. What a line-up we have for you joining the Apothecaries; From Episode 1.2 - Claire Howard, Medicines Optimisation Pharmacist and Wiganer From Episode 1.10 - Sam Quaye, Pharmacy Technician Extraordinair...

We are joined by Tracy Lyons. Tracy is a medicines optimisation pharmacist and the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association’s Environment & Sustainability advisor. In March 2021 Tracy helped to form ‘Pharmacy Declares’, a self-convened group of ‘climate conscious’ pharmacy professionals calling for our professional/regulatory bodies to 1) declare a climate emergency 2) fully divest from fossil fuels &...

This episode it is our honour to be joined by Dr Diane Ashiru-Oredope. Diane is the Lead Pharmacist for the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and Healthcare Associated Infections, UK Health Security Agency and the Global AMR lead for the Commonwealth Pharmacists Association. Diane developed and leads the international Antibiotic Guardian campaign and is currently leading an evidence review into pharm...

This week we are joined from Canada by Professor James McCormack. James is a pharmacist and co-host of the Best Science Medicine Podcast and is world renowned for his entertaining take on shared decision making and using evidence based information. James also uses music to teach others about polypharmacy and deprescribing. No, really! We chat to James about his hugely successful podcast, the impor...

Ever heard the term Value Based Healthcare and wondered what it meant? Well wonder no more. This week's guest, Dr Sally Lewis explains all. Sally is the National Clinical Director for Value Based Healthcare and Prudent Health in Wales as well as a practicing GP. We chat to Sally live from her shed about the importance of an outcome focussed approach, PROMS & PREMS (Patient Reported Outcome/Exp...

Episode 3.2 - Chris Martin - Good for us, Good for you, Good for Everybody In this episode it is our great pleasure to be joined by Chris Martin. Chris is a community pharmacist by background with extensive experience in a wide variety of Public Sector Roles. These have included being Chairman of Hywel Dda University Health Board and the Welsh NHS Confederation. Currently he is Chair of the Life S...

Episode 3.1 - Dr Louise Newson - The Menopause Dr. The Aural Apothecaries are back for Series 3! In this episode it is our great pleasure to interview Dr Louise Newson - also known as the Menopause Doctor. As well as a GP and menopause specialist, Louise is also host of the popular podcast ‘My Menopause Doctor’. We chat to Louise about how the Menopause and the prescribing of HRT in general is an...

We welcome the final guest for series 2 - Dr Mark Holland. Mark is Associate Professor at the University of Bolton and formerly a Consultant in geriatric medicine at Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester, before moving into Acute Medicine. He was formerly President of the Society for Acute Medicine where he did so many TV interviews on behalf of his profession he ended up with his own IMDB database! We...

We welcome our first guest from the United States - Professor Dave Slawson. Dr Slawson currently serves as the Chair of Family medicines for Atrium Health Carolinas medicines Center and is a Professor of Family Medicines with the University of North Carolina amongst many other positions. He is an international lecturer in evidenced-informed decision making and Information Mastery. We chat to Dave...

Lelly began her career in community pharmacy and then worked as a primary care pharmacist, becoming the first UK community based consultant pharmacist in 2007. Her current role is at Guys and St Thomas and involves optimising medicines use in frail older people and she has a keen interest in approaches that consider the complex relationship between frailty, multimorbidity and polypharmacy. As a co...

Fiona, a nurse and founder of nmprescribing which provides the opportunity for NMPs to continue to be safe and effective NMPs through access to Continued Professional Development. Fiona has considerable expertise in all matters related to non-medical prescribing, having been an experienced nurse prescriber, and is now prescribing lead for nurses on the prescribing programme at Medway School of Pha...

Mark is an NHS GP and award winning journalist. He spends half his week working as a GP partner in rural Gloucestershire, and the rest investigating and reporting on the latest developments in medicine. As well as a regular column in the Times, Mark is a regular on daytime TV GP and Radio 4. We chat to Mark about his new practice pharmacy professionals, deprescribing, and the six-week wait for hos...

Rachel is a pharmacist and Professor of Health Economics at University of Manchester. Rachel has worked with Datalab, NICE and Academic Health Science networks to contribute health economics input of commissioning. She was also one of the first ICU pharmacists ever appointed in the UK. Rachel was also involved in the development and evaluation of the PINCER and the New Medicines Service. We chat t...