Hospital Pharmacy Europe 89
In the latest issue of Hospital Pharmacy Europe, as part of our new regular Applied Research section, Johanna Watts and colleagues from Manchester discuss how delivering a clinical pharmacy service within an NHS acute trust has many challenges, not least of which is the conflict between workload demands and staffing resource.
They have designed and implemented a service delivery model utilising a pharmacy digital tracker board and workforce management system that allocates staff based on patient risk and workload. Following implementation of the new service delivery model, a significant increase in the number of patients with medicines reconciliation completed within 48 hours of admission was observed, alongside a 29% increase in the number of discharge prescriptions dispensed within two hours and a reduction in incident reports relating to failure to deliver pharmaceutical care as per local standards from four to zero.
The introduction of dose banding and the recent publication of product specifications by NHS England has set the ball in motion for the introduction of licensed standardised chemotherapy doses. Tariro Kabba and Christopher Woodard at Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Trust share how they have implemented licensed ready to administer gemcitabine bags in their organisation and the benefits that this has conferred, including increased capacity for NHS aseptic units to participate in CIVAS services, quicker turnaround times compared with outsourced chemotherapy batch ordering, and the release of aseptic unit staff to participate in other activities and service development, such as research and development and clinical trials.
Hypoparathyroidism is a rare disorder characterised by low serum calcium, elevated serum phosphorus and inadequate secretion of parathyroid hormone. In our Reviews section, Professor Maria Luisa Brandi of the University of Florence discussed advances in the development of hormone replacement therapies indicated as adjunctive treatment for adult patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism who cannot be adequately controlled with standard therapy alone.