AWARD WINNERS
OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO PHARMACY SARAH MAWHINNEY
ThE rECIPIEnT of ThIS yEAr’S oUTSTAnDIng ConTrIBUTIon IS A PhArMACIST, Who hAS DEVoTED hEr CArEEr noT only To ThE CoMMUnITy PhArMACy SECTor BUT AlSo To ThE DEVEloPMEnT of ThE ProfESSIon.
S
arah Mawhinney, BSc, MPSnI, fPS graduated as a pharmacist from Queen’s University in 1977.
At that time, Sarah’s ambition was to have a career as a hospital pharmacist, and so she opted to go to leeds for her pre-registration year.
In the late 70s, hospital pharmacy was just beginning to expand and make an impact and St James’s hospital in leeds – which Sarah chose for her pre-registration year - was at the forefront of that development; offering Sarah the opportunity to work in areas such as drug information, quality control, aseptic and non- aseptic manufacturing, outpatient dispensing and ward supply. She was also able to take part in ward rounds.
Sarah really enjoyed every aspect of that year - particularly the clinical and patient involvement – and so it was hardly surprising that, on her return to northern Ireland in 1978, she took a post as a hospital pharmacist. This post was, however, to be a short one since, during that year, Sarah was smitten by the travel bug. The Belfast of 1978 wasn’t the Belfast of today, and it’s fair to say that there wasn’t much happening in the city of a positive nature, and so, when Sarah saw an advertisement for a job in the sunny climes of Bermuda, she quickly applied!
Within a few months, she was dispensing prescriptions in Somerset Pharmacy in Bermuda where, from the dispensary window, she had a view of Mangrove Bay, blue skies and expensive yachts. What an introduction to community pharmacy! Unsurprisingly, Sarah loved this life – and her pharmacy work. While the Bermuda system was different to that of the UK, the combination of drugs and patients meant that the practice
30 - PhArMACy In foCUS
basically resembled that of community pharmacy work back home. What was very different, however, was that Bermuda her with opportunities for a myriad of sports, such as scuba diving, tennis and running. It also provided easy access to travel in the States, Canada and South America.
After four years in this idyllic setting, however, Sarah decided to return to northern Ireland and bought a pharmacy in Belfast. By now – by her own admission – she had become a community pharmacist ‘convert’ and never considered returning to hospital pharmacy.
A few years later, she was to open a pharmacy in Cloughmills and for a number of years ran the two pharmacies simultaneously. By now, she had also become active in a number of pharmacy organisations, such as the Pharmaceutical Contractors Committee (PCC), the Pharmaceutical Society of northern Ireland (PSnI) and the Ulster Chemists’ Association (UCA), of which she was to become President in 1995.
Always an innovator, during Sarah’s time with UCA, she was heavily involved in developing the annual conferences, business events and links with other organisations. Most notably, she helped develop UCA communications from a basic newsletter to a magazine, which eventually led to today’s professional publication that you’re now reading!
Sarah was always deeply committed to trying to bring northern Ireland’s pharmacy organisations together and, as such, was instrumental in setting up a joint Public relations committee so that the profession could effectively speak with one voice. During that period, Sarah also sat on
the Central Pharmaceutical Advisory Committee; Pharmaceutical Advisory, Drug and Therapeutics committees of the northern health & Social Services Board; Pharmacy Practices Committee, national Appeal Panel and as pharmacy representative on Antrim & Ballymena local health & Social Care group.
Sarah was determined to make a difference in pharmacy in any way that she could. She worked alongside Sheelagh hillan, for example, in conjunction with health Board and Department of health officials, to create conditions whereby the need for dispensing doctors was removed in northern Ireland – a feat that was way ahead of the rest of the UK. She also had a keen interest in developing new services, such as prescribing advice for gP practices, repeat dispensing services, connected health and health and wellbeing initiatives as part of the Building the Community Pharmacy Partnership. She is also now using her extensive skills and experience to support Integrated Care Partnerships in the work that they are doing.
As a woman of vision, it’s hardly surprising that Sarah is more interested in talking about future possibilities than what she achieved in the past. So, what does she hope to see in the future for community pharmacy? ‘Sadly,’ Sarah tells Pif, ‘I think there may be more barriers to change today than there were 25 years ago. I would suggest that service development today has to be integrated across professional barriers and across primary and secondary care. Initiatives such as Integrated Care Partnerships have been successful in some areas in breaking down barriers and I think these are forums for innovation and new service development. I would like
there to be a commitment to take those successful new services and implement them at regional level.
‘With regard to repeat dispensing, I see a great opportunity for this to be brought up to date through Electronic Transmission of Prescriptions and by giving community pharmacists access to the ECr, this could become the service it was always meant to be; a service where community pharmacists manage medicines for patients with long-term conditions, the gP can make alterations to the repeat prescriptions electronically and the pharmacists can implement those changes easily and accurately. More importantly the pharmacist can monitor patient responses and provide feedback to the gP. What is stopping this becoming a present reality? It requires a willingness to leave professional silos, make the necessary organisational shifts and just do it.
‘Thankfully the greatest career satisfaction for me always came from working with patients, advising them and helping them stay well or manage their medical condition so they could enjoy life. That is probably true for most community pharmacists, so irrespective of the frustrations in the wider environment we go into our pharmacies very day and work for the benefit of our patients, one at a time.’
In presenting the outstanding Contribution award, UCA President, Cliff McElhinney, paid tribute to Sarah, describing her as a ‘tireless and passionate ambassador for community pharmacy’ and ‘a fantastic asset thanks to her knowledge of connecting communities to health and wellbeing’.
Sarah Mawhinney and Brendan Moffatt EMIS Health
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