The Aural Apothecary

We chat to Jill Cruikshank - a community pharmacist in Edinburgh who works in Community Pharmacy Development in NHS Lothian. In addition Jill is a coach, trainer and speaker who runs her own consultancy Leading2Solutions. She is currently writing a book inspired by the development work she has done with early years pharmacists. We talk with Jill about ‘Pharmacy First’ - the Scottish Minor Ailments...

We chat to Dr Tessa Lewis - Tessa is a GP in Blaenavon, Wales and a Therapeutics and Medical Advisor. As well as being the author of the renowned ‘NO-TEARS’ medication review framework (https://www.bmj.com/content/329/7463/434) Tessa was awarded the ‘Distinguished Contribution to NICE Award’ for her contribution to its work. Our micro-discussion focuses on the paper ‘potentially inappropriate pres...

We chat to Dr Karen Sankey - a GP of 25 years who is currently working at St Werburghs medical practice for the homeless. Karen talks about her frustration with the current medical model and how in her view it does not serve the most vulnerable people and their needs. Taking her learnings from the last 5 years she has designed and delivered the award winning Community Support Hub - a multiagency d...

Welcome back for series 2! We talk to Jonathan Underhill who is a consultant clinical adviser for NICE and has a research interest in Evidence-Informed Decision Making. We discuss the new NICE 5 year strategy, Shared Decision making and what autobiographies can teach us about human behaviour. Alongside this we discuss his love of The Boss, animals and drug allergies and a toxicology murder-mystery...

Samantha is a pharmacy technician who has worked in community and hospital pharmacy, education and regulation. We chat about Samantha’s role as an elected Governor for Guy’s and St Thomas and how feedback is vital to support staff wellbeing. Sam proves herself a superfan of the podcast in our end of series quiz. As with all our guests we ask Samantha to pick her ‘Desert Island Drug’, a career defi...

Angela leads the Northern Ireland Medicines Safety Team supporting health and social care trusts in preventing avoidable medicines related harm. We discuss the World Health Organisations ‘Medicines Safety Challenge’ and the importance of Human Factors in Healthcare. We get back onto the subject of drug pronunciations and learn something more about Steve the Chemist's early career… As with all our...

Ravi is a pharmacist and graduate of the London School of Pharmacy, holds a Masters in Genomic Medicines and has been awarded fellowship by the Faculty of UK Clinical Informatics. He is currently the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Director for England as well as continuing to work as a GP practice prescribing pharmacist. We chat to Ravi about his passion for pharmacogenomics and how it might revol...

Jonathan is owner of, and a successful pharmacy podcaster and publisher at, Pharmacy in Practice - www.pip.scot. Jonathan has worked in community pharmacy and general practice, using his prescribing qualification in both to run respiratory clinics. We “blether” with Johnathan about Pharmacy in Scotland, his passion for independent prescribing and the risks and benefits posed to medicines supply by...

Mark is an NHS palliative care consultant and honorary professor at Cardiff University School of Medicine. He founded TalkCPR.wales and has a national lead role to improve public understanding on topics relevant to care in the last years of life and at the extreme ends of medicine. He has given a Ted Talk on why subtleties in language are critical in modern healthcare and writes for international...

Lindsay is the Director of Pharmacy at the Northern Care Alliance NHS Group . Previously she was the lead intestinal failure specialist pharmacist on the national intestinal failure unit at Salford and worked at the University of Manchester as a honorary clinical lecturer and module leader on the postgraduate clinical pharmacy diploma. We talk to Lindsay about the role of clinical pharmacists and...

John is an integrated healthcare manager for the Pharmaceutical Industry as well as a former international rugby player, having hugely successful careers in both codes – rugby union and rugby league. Playing for the British Lions and Wales in both Rugby Union and Rugby League, as well as Bridgend RFC, Sale Sharks and Widnes, amongst others. As well as his amazing career we talk to John about trans...

The Aural Apothecary welcomes Dr Lawrence Brad. A partner and GP prescribing lead at a large GP Practice in Bournemouth. He is also a Fellow of the RCGP and acts as the RCGP representative for clinical pharmacists. He is a clinical teaching fellow at the University of Bath school of Pharmacy and Pharmacology and one of the Wessex LMC GP education programme leads. He has published with both Jamie a...

The Aural Apothecary welcomes Dr Amira Guiguis. Amira is a pharmacist who gained her PhD in the in-field detection of New Psychoactive Substance (NPS) and is currently the MPharm Programme Director at Swansea University Medical School and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Hertfordshire. We discuss the establishment of the new School of Pharmacy in Swansea, the difficulties with supervi...

We meet our first guest, Clare Howard. Clare has worked in pharmacy since she was 16 and in the past was Deputy Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for NHS England. She is now the Medicines Optimisation Clinical Director for the Wessex Academic Health and Sciences Network. We discuss Clare's choice of Desert Island Drug, a book that has influenced her career and a song for the Aural Apothecary playlist....

Welcome to the Aural Apothecary Podcast. A lighthearted take on the world of medicines, pharmacy and healthcare in the UK from Jamie, Gimmo and Steve the Chemist. In this, our first episode, the boys introduce themselves and take on topics ranging from Aspirin to Compassion. Bruce Willis even makes a guest appearance. You can listen to the Aural Apothecary Playlist at https://open.spotify.com/user...