NEWS
New NPA Chief Pharmacist
Leyla Hannbeck has taken on the role of Chief Pharmacist at the NPA. As Chief Pharmacist, Leyla is accountable for all pharmacy practice related content and services at the NPA. She will represent the organisation and its members to stakeholders and undertake a professional leadership role to ensure that NPA members are
kept abreast with changes related to pharmacy policy and practice.
She continues to be responsible for the NPA Pharmacy Services Department; Leyla joined the organisation in 2010 as Head of Information Services and held the position of Head of Pharmacy Services since 2012.
Janice Oman
Scotland Representation Manager
Centralised dispensing caution
NPA Board members, Noel Wicks and Gordon Dykes, hosted an NPA evening sponsored by Bristol Myers Squibb at the end of October. Pharmacists attended the event for round table discussions on a number of topics, including Hub and Spoke dispensing.
The National Pharmacy Association has long urged caution about centralised dispensing, whilst recognising that there are various models, each of which should be judged on its own merits. In pursuit of a level playing fi eld for contractors irrespective of ownership, there should be no setting aside of governance standards and sober consideration of unintended consequences. We are especially wary of hub and spoke models which reduce patient contact with pharmacists, for example where the hub is a distance selling pharmacy with the spokes being merely prescription collection points or direct to patients.
Leyla Hannbeck, Chief Pharmacist, NPA £2.5m to lift lid on infection
The cause of fungal infections which can have life-threatening consequences for some patients is the target of a new multi-million pound research project led by world leading scientists at the University of Aberdeen.
The internationally renowned Aberdeen Fungal Group have received nearly £2.5million to investigate the role Candida plays in the body, and how it can cause thrush in both perfectly healthy, and already ill individuals.
The majority of the funding for the fi ve year project comes as a Programme Grant from the UK Medical Research Council and is led by Professor Al Brown.
“This fi ve-year project addresses the yeast Candida with which we have a fractious relationship,” explains Professor Brown. “Most people carry Candida, but our immune defences keep infections at bay. However, if this balance is perturbed then Candida
48 - SCOTTISH PHARMACIST
can cause thrush in otherwise healthy people, and in intensive care patients it can cause life-threatening infections.
“This award will allow us to explore this uneasy relationship, and in particular, how this yeast becomes a moving target for our immune defences”.
Most healthy individuals carry Candida in their normal microfl ora, but the yeast only causes damage when the body’s immune defences become compromised in some way, or this microfl ora is perturbed, for example by antibiotics that kill bacteria. As a yeast, Candida is not sensitive to these antibiotics, and can fl ourish when bacterial competitors are killed off.
The research team includes Professors Neil Gow (University of Aberdeen), Lars Erwig (an honorary professor at the University of Aberdeen and Director of Discovery Medicine at GlaxoSmithKline) and Professor Mihai Netea (Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands).
At the same meeting Jim Duggan, GPhC Regional Manager, presented on GPhC inspection of pharmacy delivery services. He highlighted best practice with regard to obtaining and maintaining patient consent and carrying out an appropriate risk assessment of arrangements. In particular, there was discussion around how in the interest of patient care it is important to risk assess any variance to the normal delivery method and obtain consent for such if necessary. Remember - the NPA now offers innovative solutions to support pharmacy delivery services. These include the ‘Delivering Medicines Safely and Effectively’ training course, a GPhC accredited distance learning course to ensure the safety of your patients and reduce the risk of errors. Staff can enrol via
www.npa.co.uk.
Pro Delivery Manager is a new online
tool that allows pharmacies to schedule, record and track prescription deliveries in real-time.
It offers improved customer service, business
continuity, improved audit and cost savings. Pharmacies can sign up to a free trial via the NPA website.
Finally – I was recently accompanied by Noel Wicks to a meeting with Professor Rose Marie Parr, Chief Pharmaceutical Offi cer in Scotland. Rose Marie discussed the responsibilities and priorities of her new role whilst we provided an update on current NPA work streams.
Rose Marie is keen to
learn about NPA member experience of any local solutions to the demand for medicine compliance aids. If you or your local Board or Local Authority has introduced any system that is improving the situation or indeed making things worse, it would be useful to draw attention to it when the NPA replies to Rose Marie in mid December.
Janice Oman NPA Representation Manager in Scotland
Please do not hesitate to contact Janice on
j.oman@
npa.co.uk if you have any issues you would like to raise.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56