Pharmacy
Our pharmacy receptionist will be there to greet all patients and families on arrival at the pharmacy.
Pharmacy Manager Contact Details
- Danny Forrest, Chief Pharmacist - contact via PA:
- Laura Mithell, PA to Chief Pharmacist - Tel: 0151 600 1824
Other Pharmacy Contact Details
- Dispensary: 0151 600 1815 – where you can be put in touch with any of the Team.
- Prescription Order requests: 0151 600 1144 (answer phone messages can be left too)
The Pharmacy Department carries out the following functions:
- Inpatient prescriptions dispensing
- Outpatient prescriptions dispensing
- Take home prescriptions dispensing
- Controlled drug dispensing
- Stock top-ups on wards and departments
- Patients’ own medicine schemes
- Purchasing and stock control
- Clinical trial dispensing
- Aseptic dispensing
- Supply of dietetic products
- Advice to patients and staff
- Patient counselling and information regarding their medication e.g. side effects
- Palliative Care services (including providing off-site services to a number of hospices)
- Ward Rounds – daily as part of the Multi-disciplinary team, preparation of the discharge prescription is part of this activity
- Policy authorship and audit to maintain / improve quality of the medicines management process within the Trust
- Drug and Therapeutics committee – governance committee for medicines and policies involving medicines
- Drug Formulary
The Department houses a state of the art automated dispenser which helps to reduce errors, increases space efficiency and increases speed of dispensing. The Robot stores the various medicines in a tightly packed series of shelves, in order of expiry date, enabling a more efficient stock control system.
In addition, we have an Aseptic Suite used for the preparation of sterile products, such as total parental nutrition (for feeding patients intravenously) and other aseptic products including epidural/ paravertebral infusions and some clinical trial medicines.
The Drug and Therapeutics Committee reviews new drugs as they appear on the market and seek to rationalise existing therapy. The Committee also approves drugs for inclusion in the Trust’s Drug Formulary, which serves as a guide to prescribers, within the Hospital. The committee reviews policies which aid the Trust staff to treat patients safely whenever medicines are involved.
Clinical Pharmacy: Pharmacists and Technicians visit each ward on a daily basis making sure all patients have their correct medicines prescribed determined by their clinical need. At the start of each patient’s stay their prescription is compared to the medicines that they usually take when at home and any discrepancies are sorted out, a process called medicines reconciliation.
Pharmacists attend daily ward rounds with senior and junior medical staff to ensure patients are on the most appropriate medication and to prepare their prescription ready for discharge.
Technicians also visit the wards on a weekly basis to ‘top-up’ patients with medication which helps speed up their discharge. Assistant Technical Officers visit wards and departments on a weekly basis in order to keep them stocked with their frequently used drugs.
Electronic Prescribing: An Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system is implemented throughout the whole Trust. The EPR system contains an electronic prescribing module, so all prescriptions are completed electronically. The EPR team provide guidance, assistance and maintenance of the EPR system. The team will answer any queries that users have and distribute relevant guidance documentation. There are two pharmacy technicians working within this team.
Clinical Trials : The Clinical Trials team consists of a Lead Pharmacist and Technician, who are responsible for the set up and running of clinical trials involving medicinal products in the department including commercial and Trust sponsored trials. The Trust conducts phase I to IV trials in a range of specialities including cardiology, respiratory and cystic fibrosis. The team are members of the Trust’s Research and Innovation Committee who review all trials within the Trust and assist with protocol design of Trust-sponsored trials.
Pharmacy manages a dispensing and stock control computer system called Ascribe.
All transactions, including ordering, dispensing, ward top up supplies, manufacturing, invoicing and reporting, pass through the Ascribe system. This enables the pharmacy staff to audit stock usage and provide costings to departments throughout the Trust and to off site hospices and wards.