VACCINATIONS: LESSONS LEARNT
As Northern Ireland’s community pharmacy vaccination programme winds down, PiF spoke to pharmacists to find out how they coped with the extra workload.
T
he speed at which the COVID vaccination programme has been rolled out has meant that community pharmacy’s role
has been brought to a rapid end as the vaccinations move to the under-30 cohort.
At the Health Centre Pharmacy in Carrickfergus, contractor Jonathan Lloyd feels that it is very important that pharmacists ensure that they can incorporate vaccine administration into the pharmacy’s day-to-day activity.
‘As we reach the end of the available cohorts, and as initial surges of the first vaccination may be slowing down for community pharmacy,’ Jonathan told PiF, ‘I firmly believe that vaccinations from community pharmacy may become as routine as dispensing prescriptions.
‘In order to be able to deliver this service, all of our pharmacists have been trained and were actively vaccinating during the programme. ‘As with most community pharmacies, we did experience difficulties in booking initial appointments and second appointments to ensure that eight doses were used in every clinic. We learnt very quickly, however, to deal with these minor problems. At the outset, for example, we weren’t expecting ‘no shows’ and so ended up with extra doses in the vial.
‘Naturally, we wanted to ensure zero wastage, and so we created a ‘stand-by list’ of people that we could contact quickly and who could come to the pharmacy at short notice so that we could use all of the doses.
‘We also had some minor issues with patients turning up with no ID, or those who booked in when they were not in the relevant government cohorts.
‘We also experienced problems in booking staff cover for clinics, mainly because there would be an initial massive demand when the government announced a change in cohorts, followed by difficulty in getting clinics filled a week later.
Jonathan Lloyd delivers vaccine to UCA-NI Operations Manager, Adrienne Clugston.
10
pharmacyinfocus.com
‘Nevertheless, we worked through all of these issues and I certainly feel that we are completely set up now for whatever way we will be operating in this role in the future. I and my staff felt great satisfaction in delivering the service.
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
