Pharmacy In Practice Podcast Pharmacy in Practice

We were delighted to be joined by Janice Perkins to chat about the current state of UK pharmacy. 

Janice has over 30 years of leadership experience in community pharmacy.  She’s the former Superintendent Pharmacist of Well Pharmacy, responsible for patient safety & well-being, regulatory & professional standards and delivery of the NHS contractual framework and services.

A key part of the role was ensuring colleagues were clear about their developing role within community pharmacy and using every opportunity to instill pride, passion and professionalism throughout the business.

A Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Janice is Chair of the Community Pharmacy Patient Expert Advisory Group, a Visiting Professor in Community Pharmacy at Keele University and until recently was the Chair of the Community Pharmacy Patient Safety Group.

Janice is a former board member of the Company Chemists’ Association and the PSNC Committee member.

Leadership in Scottish Community pharmacy circles has been alive and kicking for some years now. The policy document 'The Right Medicine' published back in February 2002 was a seminal moment for Scottish community pharmacy and paved the way for the way pharmaceutical care has evolved north of the border. In the heady days just after Scottish devolution Chief Pharmaceutical Officier Bill Scott pushed through this plan to allow pharmacists and their teams in Scotland to allow patients in Scotland to realise the benefits of pharmaceutical care. 

"The Right Medicine: a strategy for pharmaceutical care in Scotland" was published on 4 February. It aims to help people to get the maximum benefit from their medicines. It outlines the way in which pharmacists and the Scottish Executive will work with stakeholders to improve public health; provide better access to care; deliver better quality services for people; and develop the pharmaceutical profession."

So it seems appropriate that just over two decades on years on we chat with the boss of one of the community pharmacy chains that grew out of this period of Scottish political and community pharmacy history. 

This interview is with Richard Stephenson. Richard has been Chief Operating Officer at Right Medicine Pharmacy for approximately 13 years. He is also Managing Director of the buying group Edinpharm and leads his own consultancy business, R5 Consult. 

In addition to these roles Richard also gives his time voluntarily to a number of worthy causes not least his role as Trustee at the Children's Panel. 

The team at Right Medicine Pharmacy began their journey in 2000 when business partners Jonathan Burton MBE and Noel Wicks took over the Campus Pharmacy at the University of Stirling. Since then the group has grown in size to 35 Pharmacies and over 250 team members. Right Medicine Pharmacy is now considered to be one of the most progressive and cutting-edge pharmacy service providers in Scotland.

References

Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates

Trevor Gore and I return with an introductory podcast revealing our plans for 2023.

We’ll rattle through the UK pharmacy news, catch up on stories beyond pharmacy and discuss our monthly featured interview.

It will hopefully be a lot of fun.

Patient group directions have traditionally been a ‘stop gap’ option, especially in the era before pharmacist independent prescribing. This debate will explore the future of patient group directions by community pharmacists. Many have lauded patient group directions as an excellent tool to extend the scope of practice of community pharmacists. However, many would say that a tick box technical process serves to continue the de-professionalisation of the pharmacist profession. In the coming years all pharmacists will qualify as independent prescribers but will they be able to make the step away from structured tick box pharmaceutical care or will they embrace uncertainty?

Professor Harry McQuillan
Chief executive of Community Pharmacy Scotland

In addition to his role at Community Pharmacy Scotland Harry is also visiting Professor at the University of Strathclyde and a RNID pension fund trustee.

Siddiqur Rahman
GP pharmacist

Siddiqur is a pharmacist who works in general practice, he is an independent prescriber, PCN clinical lead, Co-Director of the Pharmacist Co-operative and a PDA Union representative.

Professor Derek Evans
Travel health pharmacist

Derek Evans is a pharmacist who owns a private travel health consultancy. He has worked in community pharmacy in many specialist roles and senior management positions.

Farzana Haq
GP pharmacist

Practice pharmacist with experience in community pharmacy, hospital pharmacy, primary care and NHS 24.

The debate based on whether or not screening for atrial fibrillation should be deployed nationally in Scotland has been progressing for some years now. There is precedent for such schemes elsewhere but so far there has been no nod to such a national service in Scotland. Does the evidence stack up in favour of such scheme? 

Should pharmacists be involved? If such a screening programme went national what precedent might it set for other clinical areas? What political lever would need to be pulled to make these things happen?

You can view all the sessions at the Future Pharmacist conference by clicking here. 

Thank you to our conference sponsors Wylie And Bisset. Find out more here.

The Aural Apothecary Podcast has captured the imagination of pharmacists across the land and has provided some light-hearted relief from what has been a tricky few years. 

The podcast is a lighthearted take on the world of medicines, pharmacy and healthcare in the UK from Jamie, Gimmo and Steve the Chemist. They have welcomed a number of guests onto their podcast and have asked each to describe their favourite song, book and drug. 

We are extremely proud to welcome them as guests at our inaugural conference. For fun, we will turn the tables and find out their favourite books, drugs and songs.

You can view all the sessions at the Future Pharmacist conference by clicking here. 

Thank you to our conference sponsors Wylie And Bisset. Find out more here.