AWARD WINNERS
COMMUNITY PHARMACY TEAM OF THE YEAR
ROWLANDS PHARMACY, ELLON
Stephen Marks, Numark and the team from Rowlands Pharmacy, Ellon
WHEN ROWLANDS ACQUIRED THE ELLON PHARMACY TWELVE YEARS AGO, IT WAS ALREADY WELL ESTABLISHED IN THE LOCAL RURAL COMMUNITY. NEVERTHELESS, THE ROWLANDS TEAM HAVE INVESTED HEAVILY IN EXPANDING THE SERVICES AVAILABLE TO THEIR LOCAL COMMUNITY.
The team have made it their mission to develop services which meet the healthcare needs of their community (population of around 10,348) which is made up of families, working adults commuting to Aberdeen, the elderly population and the farming community.
The team not only invest in the services expected under the Scottish pharmacy contract, but also proactively work with the local GP practice. The Ellon team have a breadth of pharmacy experience and work extremely well together to deliver a broad range of services six days a week to their local community.
Pharmacy Manager Sarah Patterson gained managerial experience by working in other Rowlands pharmacies in the Aberdeen area and has brought to the Ellon team a wealth of expertise. Sarah firmly believes in investing heavily in developing her team and herself to support patient needs.
Under Sarah’s guidance, the Ellon team has worked to utilise the skills of all team members to ensure seamless service delivery to patients in as efficient a manner as possible
42 - SCOTTISH PHARMACIST
utilising the most appropriate skills within the team to deliver each part of every service. Indeed, the team will frequently have a ‘huddle’ to decide upon best course of action to improve performance or review process. Each member of the team embraces change in a positive manner, and continually challenges and reviews how things are done to improve on this.
The team has a strong educational reputation locally with the School of Pharmacy & Life Sciences at Robert Gordon University (RGU). Each year, the pharmacy provides annual work experience placements for undergraduates and students from Qatar where RGU has strong professional/academic links. The team is well known for giving of their time to let students work shadow them in their roles, allowing students to understand not only the profession, but also team working.
Pharmacy Manager Sarah has carefully reviewed the qualifications, strengths and skill mix within her team to ensure that each member knows where they fit into the bigger picture and to give each individual a level of responsibility appropriate to their role. By working in this way, each member of the team
has ownership for their part of the bigger picture and feels a valued asset to the team.
As a good example of how well the team works together, Sarah recently had the opportunity to shadow the practice pharmacist carrying out polypharmacy reviews at the local surgery. She also reviewed patient repeat quantities with the practice pharmacist to align prescribing of all long-term medicines to two monthly as some patients had some items set to one month quantities, some to two and some to three months, creating confusion for the patient and more work for the GP practice.
During this experience, one example stood out. Like the practice pharmacist, Sarah has her own access to patient records and performs medication reviews, mainly on dosette box patients. She produces care plans for each patient and forwards them to the GP for review.
On one occasion Sarah noticed that one patient, who was on Ramipril 5mg capsules, had reduced kidney function. The GP had written into the patient’s notes to stop Ramipril for one month before reviewing kidney function. While carrying out this review, Sarah could not remember the information being transferred to the pharmacy. She called the pharmacy and the staff confirmed that Ramipril was still in the next month’s blister
pack as the surgery had re-issued a prescription for the next month. Sarah was able to notify the GP immediately and the pharmacy removed the Ramipril immediately.
As a direct result of this intervention, Sarah was able to initiate a process with the GPs whereby information about any dose changes is recorded on the repeat slip, and calls are made to the pharmacy regarding any medication which requires to be stopped.
The Ellon team also provides a targeted approach to the smoking cessation service. This involves the surgery referring all patients, who want to give up smoking, to the pharmacy smoking cessation service. In the pharmacy, routine CO levels are taken by dispensary staff members, who have been trained to do so, and staff then complete follow-up interventions with patients. The team actively promotes this service to their substance misuse patients as they have regular contact with them anyway and so they take advantage of their prime opportunity to have daily/ more regular follow-ups with patients.
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
