AWARD WINNERS


PHARMACY TEAM MEMBER OF THE YEAR


MARGARET CROOKSTON, WISHAW GENERAL HOSPITAL


Margaret Crookston Wishaw General Hospital with Sarah-Jane Boniface Alliance Healthcare


MARGARET CROOKSTON IS CURRENTLY THE LEAD TECHNICIAN FOR THE JAC PHARMACY COMPUTER TEAM AND MANAGES THE ELECTRONIC ORDER TRANSMISSION PROCESS, PROVIDING JAC SYSTEM SUPPORT TO THE THREE ACUTE HOSPITALS IN LANARKSHIRE – HAIRMYRES, MONKLANDS AND WISHAW.


Within this role, Margaret works at a national level dealing with the Pharmacy Operations Group and national procurement. In addition to running and maintaining the system, Margaret investigates and identifies cost savings in relation to contract changes and has been heavily involved in the HEPMA (Hospital Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration) pilot, which has been running at Monklands for two years.


In addition to her qualifications as a registered pharmacy technician, Margaret has attended numerous JAC training courses over the years and completed her HNC in Business Management. She gained formal Project Management training via the Institute of Healthcare Management Scotland; training, which she has utilised in many, including the three hospital pharmacy department moves, ie Hairmyres, Wishaw and Kirklands.


Margaret has been trained in HMUD, which is an electronic reporting mechanism used within hospitals across Scotland, and allows comparison in drugs.


Margaret is extremely dedicated to the pharmacy service and, prior to any new project commencing, will research it thoroughly and organise


the transition period. In addition to this methodical approach she will also troubleshoot and plan for any potential issues and how to avoid/ overcome these.


She was responsible for leading the implementation of the JAC computer system across the three hospitals and when IT issues delayed the Wishaw implementation the hospital was forced to open with just a basic labelling system.


Margaret developed an ordering system to ensure medicines could be delivered via direct ward delivery and invoiced via the local drug wholesalers. In addition to dealing with numerous system changes and upgrades, Margaret appreciates the vital services which the whole hospital pharmacy team provides and recognises that all pharmacy staff still need to be able to produce a dispensing label and order a medicine.


During the HEPMA pilot, she provided on-call for the system and has continued this role as, once HEPMA is implemented, a medicine cannot be administered to a patient without an electronic prescription.


Margaret has to manage many conflicting priorities and deals with


constant interruptions and requests for reports or assistance. She ensures new staff are appropriately trained and encourages staff to adopt the changes to the system each time an improvement is made.


During her 42 years’ service in hospital pharmacy in NHS Lanarkshire, Margaret has witnessed significant expansion and service changes, computerisation and innovation. She has led on several huge pieces of work, including the tracking and transfer of all drug stock and medicines systems with the opening of the first two PFI hospitals in Scotland – Hairmyres and Wishaw. Wishaw General opened with no pharmacy store and all medicines were ordered in ‘just in time’ fashion which was a first in the UK in 2001.


As the lead technician for the JAC Pharmacy computer team, Margaret works across the three sites dealing with multiple staff, departments and issues. She is the main link to national procurement and has had several visits from other health boards to see how the Lanarkshire processes work.


Although Margaret’s role is not immediately patient facing, the services her small team provides are vital across the sites to ensure every computer terminal is available for stock ordering, maintenance and control, and labelling of dispensed medicines.


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Many difficulties can be encountered working in such a small team, which is not based on a hospital site, but nothing is too much trouble for Margaret, who regularly works extended hours to ensure all goes smoothly.


As pharmacy systems have evolved, Margaret has continued to implement improvements, for example, flagging for unlicensed medicines (which require additional checks before dispensing) and developing an ordering process for Renal Homecare patients at Monklands.


Margaret is due to retire in 2017 and much has been achieved in her last year under difficult staffing circumstances, but her resilience, the team’s flexibility and enthusiasm to take on new challenges ensured that the service was not only maintained but developed and improved.


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