Positive impact of modernisation project at London hospital
A two-year modernisation project at the pharmacy department of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, is complete and data on the impact the project is having on the delivery of pharmacy services are now being collected.
The £2.2m project began in July 2000 and was finished earlier this
year.
It included the installation of a Rowa Speedcase dispensing robot and
pneumatic air tubes for delivery of medicines to wards, upgrading the
aseptic suite and rebuilding the pharmacy department to bring the inpatient
and outpatient departments together.
Pippa Roberts, chief pharmacist at the hospital, told The Journal that
outpatient waiting times have fallen by half since the modernisation
programme started, and that 89 per cent of urgent prescriptions are now
completed in one hour compared with 37 per cent before.
Mrs Roberts explained: “The robot has enabled an increase in prescription
output of 15 per cent in the dispensary, with technical staff spending
51 per cent less time in the dispensary and pharmacists 34 per cent.
This has allowed the staff to develop new models of working.”
She described how technical staff now co-ordinate discharge prescriptions
which has led to all discharge medicines being on the wards before a
patient goes home. The installation of the air tubes has saved time — equivalent
to employing a nurse full time.
A new night shift system has also been introduced for the resident pharmacists.
Mrs Roberts explained that an internal audit has shown that, in one week,
80 medicines were supplied during the night. Under the old system patients
would have had to wait until the following afternoon for them to arrive
on the ward for their first dose. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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