I was very pleased to be joined by Paul Forsyth and Barry Maguire to discuss the application of the collaborative care model in pharmacy. Paul, Barry and I explore how the collaborative care model may be applied to the pharmacy profession. Alienation, detachment general demoralisation and isolation are all consequences of pharmacists not feeling truly empowered to work autonomously in their role. Key questions discussed

• What is the value of collaboration in the workplace?
• How can the profession of pharmacy promote collaboration and autonomy among its members to improve job satisfaction and patient care?
• How can the profession of pharmacy address the issue of alienation and anxiety among its members?
• What is the impact of the changing roles in pharmacy on job satisfaction and professional identity?
• Why is debate and discussion about values and identity important?

Read the full paper below

The Collaborative Care Model: Realizing healthcare values and increasing responsiveness in the pharmacy workforce

Georgia C. Richards DPhil (Oxon), BSc (Hons I) is a research fellow at the University of Oxford. We sat down to discuss fundamentally why healthcare, and specifically pharmacy, appears to be consistently poor at reporting, sharing and learning from significant and fatal incidents involving patients.

• EBM Special Study Theme (SST) Lead for the undergraduate medical school, CEBM
• Research Fellow, ODI
• Associate Editor, BMJ EBM
• Fellow, RROx

Georgia coordinates and teaches Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) and systematic review modules for the undergraduate Medical School. She has a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil/PhD) in Epidemiology from the University of Oxford (2021) and expertise in quantitative observational research, open data, open science and evidence synthesis. Georgia's list of publications is here. 

Georgia founded and leads the Preventable Deaths Tracker. She is an Open Data Institute (ODI) Research Fellow, an Associate Editor of BMJ Evidence Based Medicine, a Fellow of Reproducible Research Oxford (RROx), a Centre for Open Science (COS) Ambassador, a member of the Catalogue of Bias Collaboration, on the Steering Group for the Declaration to Improve Health Research, and a founding member of the Transparent & Open Research Collaboration in Health (TORCH).

Georgia welcomes supervision queries from undergraduate and graduate students on taught and research programmes who are interested in pursuing research in the following areas: 

• patient safety, preventable deaths, and harms in healthcare 
• pharmaco-epidemiology and pharmaco-device-vigilance
• open science, open data, and meta-research 

Georgia also welcomes contributions to the Preventable Deaths Tracker and Oxford Catalogue of Opioids.

Here are some links I mentioned in the podcast.

1. https://preventabledeathstracker.net/
2. Substack newsletter: https://preventabledeaths.substack.com/
3. Opioid deaths: https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdad147
4. Medicine deaths: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40264-023-01274-8
5. Responses using FOI’s https://doi.org/10.1007/s40264-017-0588-0
6. SR of medicine-related PFDs: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40290-023-00486-8
7. Impact of covid on medicine-related deaths: https://www.bps.ac.uk/publishing/pharmacology-matters/august-2022/pandemics,-pharmacology,-and-preventable-deaths
8. Deaths during covid: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjebm-2021-111834
9. The BJGP podcast on the private prescribing of opioids I mentioned came out last week which may be of interest: https://www.bjgplife.com/143
   

We were delighted to welcome Yasmin Karsan to the podcast to chat all things artificial intelligence.

Episode Synopsis

Johnathan and Yasmin discuss the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning on pharmacy practice. They acknowledged the difficulty in fully understanding this technology and its potential impact on the industry, including the existential questions it raises. Despite this, they express excitement for the possibilities that AI and machine learning can bring to pharmacy practice. They also discuss the challenges faced by community pharmacy in the wider NHS system and the need for better communication, stakeholder engagement, and technology.

Yasmin shares her entrepreneurial journey, including her experience in an accelerator program that helped her find a co-founder and develop an idea for a private prescribing tool to support pharmacies. She also discusses her current focus on developing a pharmacogenomics business using AI to target patients in a precise way. Karsan acknowledges the challenges of innovating in healthcare, including the resistance to change in the industry and the paternalistic mindset that can still exist. She also highlights the importance of networking and learning from experts in different fields when building a business.

Yasmin and Johnathan explore the potential benefits and challenges of incorporating AI in healthcare. They discuss the concerns around data privacy and bias, and the importance of recognizing and mitigating biases in AI. They also touch on the need for clinicians to oversee AI in healthcare to ensure that biased information or decisions are not being made.

They also discuss the potential risks and red flags of AI and technology, including the issue of bias and the lack of control over personal data and privacy. Overall, they emphasize the need for awareness and vigilance in the face of unknown unknowns.

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.

Getting involved in research activities can feel daunting. As pharmacists, it could be argued that we don’t prioritise research in our careers enough. This session will involve a conversation between some of the top pharmacists involved in research in the UK. With decades of experience between them, we are hopeful that they might share their insights on why research matters and also some simple, manageable steps you can take to start your own research journey.

Professor Mags Watson

Professor of Health Services Research and Pharmacy Practice University of Strathclyde

Independent consultant. Watson Research & Training Limited – health services research (HSR), HSR training, mentoring & coaching. Registered pharmacist.

Professor Catriona Matheson

Professor in substance use

Professor in substance use at the University of Stirling, a freelance researcher in drug dependence and Chair of Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce.

Dr Hayley Gorton

Research and community pharmacist

Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice at the University of Huddersfield, interested in suicide research, community pharmacist and lead at RPS Greater Manchester.

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.

Is the rise of robotics in the sector a threat or an opportunity?

• Learn about the range of robotic options available in pharmacy.
• Hear first-hand feedback about the use of the various types of robots.
• Understand the workflow implications.
• Find out about the return on investment on the various robots on the market.
• Understand some of the downsides of robots.
• Learn about the long term impact of the various robots on the future of community pharmacy.

James Semple

Community pharmacy contractor

James Semple, Contractor and Vice-chairman of the Community Pharmacy Scotland Board.

Kevin Murphy

Co-founder of Medpoint

Superintendent Pharmacist at Wellbeing Pharmacies Group, Co-founder and Clinical Director at Acorn.

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.