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Two Northern Trust Pharmacy Technicians were recently selected to present their work at the APTUK (Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK) Annual Conference in Reading.

Carol Hoey, based in Antrim hospital, was awarded third prize for her presentation which focused on the use of pharmacy technicians to review patient medicine charts and to highlight any issues that needed to be resolved to the clinical pharmacists. This could include illegible medicine details, no strength being prescribed, duplicate products being prescribed or patients requiring assistance with their medicines such as inhaler counselling. By identifying these issues problems relating to medicines can be resolved quickly which leads to better care for patients.

Warren Francis, also based in Antrim hospital presented a poster at the conference which examined the work of the Specialist ICT Pharmacy Technician. The newly created role supported the Pharmacy Service to ensure optimal use of new computer systems which were recently introduced to the service. These include an automated dispensing robot, a pharmacy medicines management system and a prescription tracking system. The Specialist ICT Pharmacy technician identifies and resolves any problems, trains staff and works to integrate the systems into the pharmacy service. This will lead to a faster and more efficient pharmacy service for the Trust.

9th September 2013