Group items tagged

Ahead of the launch of UK's first state-of-the-art automated hub for independent community pharmacists, HubRx has announced the appointment of Karl Wooldridge as operations director and Matthew Tollefson as chief financial officer. Karl brings more than 14 years of sector experience to his new role with HubRx. Having begun his career as an independent community pharmacist, Karl has gone on to hold key roles within pharmacy automation, including managing Phoenix Medical Supplies' offsite dispensing service. Commenting on his appointment, Karl said: "I'm delighted to have joined the team. The pandemic has further highlighted the important role pharmacists can play in keeping the nation healthy, not least in the delivery of the latest vaccination programme. The focus is now on pharmacists offering more clinical services, but to be able to achieve that the dispensing burden needs to be reduced. "HubRx is pioneering, our approach will transform community pharmacy. We're investing in cutting-edge technology to create an automated dispensing hub that will create capacity for pharmacists, allow them to grow and expand their skills." Matthew joins from Leeds-based corporate finance firm, Sentio Partners having also held positions with Mazars and Ernst & Young.

Kanabo Group plc, a medical cannabis research and development company, has entered into a partnership with City Dock Pharmacy in London to introduce a walk-in clinic for pain management. The pain clinic will cater to patients who are eligible for alternative therapies (when traditional treatments have failed to deliver improvements), and will offer specialised medicines, including medicinal cannabis. When it opens, the new facility at City Dock Pharmacy in Wapping will become the UK's first walk-in clinic for pain management, but it will also deliver appointment-related services, the companies said. The partnership is part of the London-based company's wider ambition to extend its reach into physical pharmacies throughout the UK, and its plans to replicate this model across other pharmacies.

Wales launched the new electronic prescribing service (EPS) last week, with the country's first electronic prescription sent and dispensed on 17 November. The new service allows prescriptions to be sent digitally to a patient's nominated pharmacy, thus eliminating the need for paper forms. It is part of a wider plan to introduce digital medicines and e-prescribing in all hospitals and primary care in the country. Wellington Road Pharmacy and Lakeside Medical Centre in Rhyl became the first community pharmacy and GP practice to use the EPS, which is expected to be rolled out across Wales in January 2024.

Novo Nordisk has launched PenCycle, a recycling initiative for pre-filled injection pens, designed to address the challenge of recycling injection pen devices. A first-of-its-kind scheme in the UK, covering FlexPen® and FlexTouch® used to dispense insulin and other medications, will have community pharmacies playing a key role. Users can return their devices to local participating community pharmacies or through pre-paid Royal Mail boxes or use an 'at home' collection pilot service for growth hormone pens. The pens will then be returned to Denmark where the plastic will be recycled into a range of items, such as chairs and lamps, the Danish multinational pharmaceutical company said.

All 42 integrated care boards (ICBs) in England have signed memorandums of understanding for the NHS Independent Prescribing Pathfinder programme, the first nationally-funded prescribing service in the country. Anne Joshua, interim deputy director of pharmacy commissioning at NHS England, made the revelation during the 'Chief pharmaceutical officer bi-monthly webinar' held on 7 March 2024, as reported by The Pharmaceutical Journal. In the initial phase of the programme, 210 community pharmacies across all ICBs will trial independent prescribing, ahead of establishing a commissioning framework for the service. Giving an update on the pathfinder programme, Joshua confirmed that 164 of these potential pathfinder sites had registered for the programme as of 29 February 2024. Additionally, she announced the clinical models to be followed by the participating pharmacies and presented a graph showing an overview of the services they will provide.

Local pharmacists in England can now evaluate and provide treatment for patients with uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs) in women under the age of 65, without the need for a GP appointment. The 'ByeByeUTI' scheme has been expanded across the country, following a successful pilot across North East and North Cumbria. More than 30,000 women have been treated for uncomplicated urinary tract infections at local pharmacies since the pilot scheme was launched in July 2022 as part of the NHS and government's primary care access recovery plan, according to NHS England. The expansion of pharmacy services not only enhances patients' access to care but also frees up tens of thousands of GP appointments at the same time. Dr Faisel Baig, Medical Director for Primary Care, NHS England North East and Yorkshire, said that the rollout of this service across the whole region will enable many more women to receive "faster and easier" access to advice and treatment.

Numark is set to launch a large-scale broadcast campaign to promote its Hey Pharmacist repeat prescription service on May 22. The new campaign introduces, 'Repeat prescriptions. Made simple,' with a set of three TV adverts that feature three different heightened-reality scenarios. In each advert, the hero discovers they have forgotten to order their repeat prescription at a less than ideal time but thanks to Hey Pharmacist, a few taps later their problems are solved. The adverts highlight how managing your repeat prescriptions has never been quicker or simpler in a tongue-in-cheek, comedic tone. The campaign - which incorporates national broadcast and SkyAdSmart TV alongside digital, social, and in-store campaigns across England - promotes the Hey Pharmacist app which provides Numark members in England with an end-to-end online repeat prescription proposition, helping them deliver a best-in-class digital capability which highlights the benefits for patients who choose to collect their medication from their local Numark pharmacy. Jeremy Meader, managing director of Numark, commented: "It is very exciting to see our first TV campaign go live. The creative does a brilliant job in bringing to life the benefits of Hey Pharmacist, highlighting how easy and effortless managing prescriptions can be. We look forward to assisting more everyday heroes and supporting our members in showcasing this exciting digital proposition to a larger audience."

The Digital Medicines Transformation Portfolio (DMTP) was able to deliver the electronic prescription service (EPS) in Wales - just 20 months after starting the project - with support from key partners in the NHS and industry. Patients in Rhyl were the first to benefit from the new service, which allows GPs to send prescriptions electronically to the patient's choice of community pharmacy, without the need for a paper form. The new EPS service is currently in a live testing phase, with a phased roll out across Wales expected from January 2024. DMTP, which is hosted by Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) has worked closely with NHS England, who provided the core EPS platform that has been developed for use in Wales. NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership has also made a major contribution in the project, incorporating digital reimbursement to pharmacies and putting security measures in place.

For the first time, Covid-19 vaccines will be available for purchase from pharmacies in Britain from April 1. As revealed by The Times, Boots is set to launch a private vaccination service next week to ensure that people "remain ready to respond to this constantly evolving and unpredictable virus." Under the NHS national immunization programme (NIP), Covid booster vaccines are only offered to those at high risk, including over-65s or patients with weakened immune systems. From April 1, anyone aged 12 or over can get the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at 50 Boots stores for £98.95. While it's highly unlikely for healthier young adults to experience severe Covid-19, getting the single-dose vaccine can protect them from discomforting symptoms like coughs and sore throats. A spokesperson for Boots told the publication that their private service is the extension of their existing delivery of Covid-19 vaccinations for the NHS.

In response to new research that revealed inequality in menopause support with 51 per cent of women from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, Holland & Barrett, the UK's leading health and wellness retailer, has decided to continue its menopause campaign work to make "every menopause matter". A quarter of women (26 per cent) from minority ethnic communities say they find it difficult to access menopause support relevant to their specific backgrounds. Alongside support from Olympian and menopause campaigner, Michelle Griffith Robinson and expert, Meera Bhogal, the retailer is launching several new initiatives to make its information and support on menopause more inclusive by offering more diverse and personalised advice and content, tailored to different needs. Almost a third (31 per cent) believe being able to speak to a female healthcare professional of the same ethnicity as them would have made a difference to their menopause experience. Fifteen per cent go as far as saying that communicating in their native language would have made a positive difference. Based on these findings, Holland and Barrett is the first retailer to launch a free, multi-language menopause online consultation service. The service will see trained H&B menopause advisors offering guidance and symptom support in multiple languages, starting with Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati and Punjabi.

Veoza, a non-hormonal treatment for menopause, has been made available on the high street for the first time in the UK. British pharmacy chain Superdrug on Thursday (1st February) announced the launch of the newly approved menopause medication, expanding its comprehensive portfolio of products and services to support menopausal women. Veoza is a prescription medication that is used to manage vasomotor symptoms, specifically hot flushes and night sweats, which affect up to 80 per cent of women during menopause, as estimated by experts. It is recommended for women who prefer not to or are unable to take hormone replacement. Perimenopausal, menopausal and postmenopausal women, aged 45-65 who are not on Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) or hormonal contraception, and are suffering from moderate to severe vasomotor symptoms, are eligible to take the medication, the retailer said in a release.

Thousands of cancer patients in England are set to gain fast-tracked access to personalised cancer vaccine trials through a new National Health Service(NHS) initiative, the Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad. This groundbreaking service aims to find new life-saving treatments by matching eligible patients with clinical trials across the country. The first patient to receive a personalised vaccine for bowel cancer is Elliot Phebve, a 55-year-old lecturer, treated at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust. Phebve, diagnosed through a routine health check, underwent surgery and chemotherapy before joining the trial. Sponsored by German biotech company BioNTech SE, the colorectal cancer vaccine trial is one of several taking place across NHS trusts.

Grundon Waste Management has introduced what it claims to be the UK's first verified nationwide inhaler return and recycling initiative. NHS Trusts and community pharmacies participating in the new scheme will have specialised recycling containers for inhalers installed to simplify public participation, Grundon said in a statement. Inhalers alone contribute to 4 per cent of NHS CO2 emissions, with around 73 million dispensed annually. By 2026, the health service aims to achieve a 50 per cent reduction in carbon emissions from waste management, a target that rises to 80 percent between 2028 and 2032, as outlined in the NHS Clinical Waste Strategy. "This scheme holds the potential to revolutionise the approach of NHS Trusts towards achieving heightened carbon savings and ultimately, net zero emissions," said Chris Edwards, Grundon's General Manager - Technical. "Each discarded pressurised Metered Dose Inhaler (pMDI) contains highly polluting hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) gases - a category of greenhouse gas known to be over a thousand times more detrimental than carbon dioxide in driving climate change." "This initiative securely captures these gases and repurposes them for application in the refrigeration sector. By also recycling the plastic and aluminium components of the device, we are making a noteworthy contribution to the circular economy," he added. Once collected, these will undergo processing at Grundon's specialist recycling facility in Ewelme, Oxfordshire, which is capable of handling more than 200,000 inhalers a day. The company aims to recycle 80 per cent of all prescribed inhalers by 2025, the statement added.