Hospital Pharmacist
Vol 11 No 9 p357-358
October 2004

357 Hospital pharmacists asked to promote public health work Hospital pharmacists are being urged to come forward with any work they have done in the area of public health care. The call comes from the team involved in developing the Departments of Health’s pharmaceutical public health strategy for pharmacists in England more

357 Nurse helps launch one-stop dispensing A clinical nurse specialist for medicines management has been employed to help roll out one-stop dispensing at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust. The nurse works within the trust’s two pharmacy departments more

358 Oncology prescribing clinic launched A new oncology clinic that aims to facilitate supplementary prescribing by pharmacists is already showing benefit to patients more

358 Minister visits hospital pharmacy Rosie Winterton, health minister, visited the Royal Liverpool Hospital on 22 September. She was accompanied by the director of pharmacy, Alison Ewing, who is also a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council more

358 Report benefits of £12m investment Pharmacists who received funding as part of the Government’s £12m campaign to promote better antimicrobial use should think about how they can show that they have brought benefits with the money, according to Duncan McRobbie, principal clinical pharmacist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital NHS Trust, London. Mr McRobbie made these comments during a meeting about methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus at the British Pharmaceutical Conference in Manchester last month more

358 Award for medicines information pharmacist A hospital pharmacist who developed and managed the DrugInfoZone medicines information knowledge database, has been awarded the 2003 College of Pharmacy Practice Schering Award more

357 NEWS IN BRIEF

An extra band has been added at the top of the Agenda for Change pay scale. The basic pay for band 9 will range from £66,063 to £83,546. Some chief pharmacists and directors of pharmaceutical services will be assimilated to this band.

Elements of the Working Time Directive (Hospital Pharmacist 2004:11;46) may be relaxed following new proposals from the European Commission. The Commission is proposing that the reference period over which the 48 hour working week is calculated be increased to one year. It further proposes that time when an employee is not working, but is available on-call for work at the place of employment, should no longer be classified as working time.

The winner of the Hospital Pharmacist Credit for Learning prize 2003/4 sponsored by Mayne Pharma will be announced at the Hospital Pharmacist conference dinner on 10 November (see page 390 for further details).

Pharmacists who have managed a project which turned a vision into action are invited to apply for the United Kingdom Clinical Pharmacy Association (UKCPA), Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists (GHP), IVAX leadership award 2005. The prize, which will be presented at the UKCPA/GHP joint conference in April 2005, is £1,500 for leadership development of individuals or teams. Further information is available from admin@ukcpa.com

The NHS Counter Fraud Service will be holding a fraud awareness month in October. Staff will be visiting nearly 200 trusts in England and Wales, and details of their itinerary is available at www.cfsms.nhs.uk