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Pharmacy

The pharmacy service employs 56 staff, including 19 pharmacists and has a staffing budget of £1million. It is headed by a Chief Pharmacist and two Principal Pharmacists, one with responsibility for Technical Services and the other for Clinical Services.

The department’s services cover:

· Patient Services

· Clinical Pharmacy

· Education and Training

· Community Services

· Clinical audit

· Special project work

· Procurement and Clinical economy

· Preparative Services

· Drug Information

· Directorate pharmacists

Patient Services

This is one of the largest and busiest parts of the pharmacy, covering the dispensary and the ward stock assembly areas.

The dispensary deals with well over 100,000 prescriptions each year and is managed operationally by a Chief Technician and professionally by a Grade D pharmacist. They are supported by up to 15 staff, including rotational basic grade pharmacists, student technicians, pre-registration pharmacists, accredited checking technicians and pharmacy assistants.

The ward stock assembly area supplies over 600,000 items to wards and departments each year and is run by a supervisor, under the management of the Chief Technician.

Clinical Pharmacy

There are over 40 wards in the four hospitals run by Redbridge Health Care Trust and each of them has a clinical pharmacy service provided by a designated pharmacist. Each pharmacist works to the same standards with regular twice weekly clinical meetings and journal clubs giving plenty of opportunity for discussing and sharing problems and interesting interventions. Our clinical pharmacists work closely with the medical teams, nurses and other disciplines on the wards to ensure that every patient receives safe, timely and appropriate drug treatment.

Education and Training

Education and Training form the foundation of the pharmacy service. It is headed by a principal pharmacist and supported by an accredited clinical tutor and a senior pharmacist with responsibility for staff development. All new members of staff are allocated a mentor and have a training package tailored to their individual needs.

There are also formal training programmes leading to qualifications either as a pharmacy technician or as a pharmacist. We have strong links with the University of London School of Pharmacy with all of our basic grade pharmacists studying for the Certificate in Pharmacy Practice, and many going on to the Diploma or MSc.

Community Services

A Community Services Pharmacist and senior technician provide pharmaceutical input to all the clinics and health care units in the community. Their responsibilities range from supplying vaccines, family planning, chiropody items etc. and monitoring and advising community based staff to the inspection and registration of pharmaceutical aspects of nursing homes.

Clinical Audit

The clinical audit department at Redbridge is a busy and important department, supporting medical, nursing, pharmacy, pathology, nutrition and many other areas carrying out audit studies over a wide range of topics and interests. We have a senior pharmacist based there who is able to provide a pharmacy perspective on appropriate audits and to lead on many pharmacy-based ones.

Much of this work has led to important changes of practice, cost-savings, standardisation of practice and the introduction of new ideas and projects.

Special Project Work

For the last 2 years we have been fortunate to have had an experienced and senior pharmacist who is responsible for developing aspects of the pharmacy service in line with new ideas, new technology, new legislation, or the changing needs of the Trust. She is supported by two technicians and a rotational basic grade pharmacist and is currently working on :

Self-administration and reuse of Patient’s Own Drugs.

Involvement in pre-admission clinics

An admission pharmacist, working in the accident and emergency dept.

Non-doctor prescribing.

Procurement and Clinical Economy

A senior pharmacist is responsible for purchasing of pharmaceuticals and is also concerned with clinical economy: promoting cost effectiveness of drug usage throughout the Trust by working with senior medical and nursing staff to review and evaluate drug therapy. The pharmacy is a member of a consortium of several Trusts, which gives us greater purchasing power and scope for negotiation with drug companies and other suppliers, thus generating further cost savings and efficiency.

Preparative Services

An unlicensed, specialist unit within pharmacy provides for a wide range of named patient sterile and non-sterile services: adult and neonatal TPN, cytotoxic reconstitution and extemporaneous mixtures. There is some tablet re-packing.

We have a satellite unit on the Isobel Donn Day Unit in which cytotoxic reconstitution is undertaken to support the day care treatment of patients.

There is very effective liaison between the preparative services provided by pharmacy and the specialist areas that are the main users of this service.

Drug Information

A specialist pharmacist is responsible for both responsive and active drug information to all users of pharmacy services - Trust medical nursing and other professional staff, and to GPs and community pharmacists.

There are several sources of information: manufacturers’ and published literature, reference books, an in-house database, regional and local drug information departments, specialist hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry.

The department produces a bulletin for Trust Health Care professionals and plays an important role in the provision of information and evaluation for the medicines management process.

Directorate pharmacists

One of the needs identified in the Trust by our senior medical staff was to have more access to specialist pharmacists who could attend ward rounds and other multi-disciplinary meetings, provide financial information on treatment costs and objective, evaluated clinical information on new and high-tech drugs.

We have been able to start this process by putting experienced pharmacists into post with responsibilities for Mental Health and Care of the Elderly Services. We have also allocated specialist pharmacists to work with the cardiology, urology, orthopaedic, paediatric, gynaecology, obstetric, surgical and chest teams.

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