Pharmacy role in NHS Direct grows
NHS Direct is expanding the number of pharmacists supporting its staff with several sites reaching agreements with local medicines information services for additional advice and training.
Tiffany Barrett, senior medicines information pharmacist at the South
West Medicines Information and Training service, is now spending one
day a week at the Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire (AGW) NHS Direct
site in Bristol. Miss Barrett told The Journal that her principal involvement
is in induction and training of the nurses who handle the calls to NHS
Direct.
“At the AGW site there are eight individual teams. I am involved
with giving them an introduction to community pharmacy and updating their
training materials. The teams have training days every six weeks and
I cover topics such as drug use in pregnancy and herbal medicines.” She
added that the main benefit of being on-site is that “you become
one of the team”.
Anne Joshua, national pharmacist adviser for NHS Direct, said that Miss
Barrett’s role is similar to those established at other sites,
including the North East England site, based in Newcastle upon Tyne,
and the East Midlands service in the Trent area. Mrs Joshua said that
the work involved is based on local needs and is in addition to existing
agreements for handling complex queries about medicines. |
