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The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7190 p385-391
23 March 2002

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Wirral Health Services (more)

Hospital pharmacy department wins top IT award for automated dispensing

Wirral winners collect their awards (left to right): standing, Dr Richard Gibbs, chairman, NHS Chief Executives Information Forum; Keith Farrar, director of pharmacy, Wirral; Rupert Katritsky, managing director, ARX; Charles Ward, marketing director, CSSA; seated, Ann Slee, principal pharmacist, Wirral; and Don Hughes, director of pharmacy, Countess of Chester Hospital

Wirral Hospital NHS Trust has won top prize in the prestigious 2002 Healthcare Information Technology Effectiveness awards for an evaluation of an automated dispensing system at the trust.

The installation of a Rowa Speedcase dispensing system, supplied by ARX Ltd, has allowed more efficient use of staff time, improved the turnaround of prescriptions and reduced dispensing errors by almost half since it was installed in January last year (PJ, 5/12 January, p10).

The project won both the award for best example of technological innovation and the overall award for best use of IT in the health service.

Keith Farrar, director of pharmacy, Wirral Hospital, said that the judges had been impressed by the convincing level of data on the project that had been presented, both in terms of quantitative figures and benefits to patients. "It shows that pharmacists have an evaluative approach to what they do."

Mr Farrar said that he expected to see pharmacists playing a bigger part in IT developments within the NHS as electronic prescribing and automated dispensing become more commonplace. The Wirral Hospital Trust also won the best overall award for IT in 1996 for an evaluation of its electronic prescribing system.

Primary Care Pharmacy Ltd, run by Royal Pharmaceutical Society Council member Andrew Burr, was awarded third place in the best use of IT in any health care sector category of the 2002 awards for its pharmaceutical care support systems. This includes the remote monitoring of patients' blood pressures (PJ, 7 July 2001, p6). The judges commended "this well-conceived project for its enormous potential and eagerly wait to see it implemented across a wider region".

The Healthcare IT Effectiveness awards are run by the British Journal of Healthcare Computing and Information Management, the Computing Services and Software Association, the Department of Health, the health informatics committee of the British Computer Society, and the NHS Information Authority.