The pharmacy department at CUH consists of approximately 300 members of staff across 25 different teams. To celebrate team pharmacy day at CUH we spoke to pharmacist Eilish Middlehurst to find out more about her role.
What is your name and your role in our hospitals?
My name is Eilish, I've been working as a Pharmacist at CUH since June 2020.
Right now I'm working as the lead pharmacist for formulary and HIV within the pharmacy department.
The role of the formulary is to ensure that patients and service users have access to recommended medicines and medical devices. These are collected into lists, called formularies.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
I enjoy the variety within both my roles.
In my formulary role I get the chance to learn about all the new medicines that come out, and work with lots of different and interesting teams to help bring these new medicines into practice at CUH.
In my virology role I get to work with an amazing team and a variety of patients from all different backgrounds which is really rewarding.
Tell us a bit about your CUH journey.
I joined CUH in June 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, so for the first 18 months I didn't know what any of my new colleagues looked like without a mask! It was surprising when everyone took their masks off, as your brain thinks people are going to look different than they really do.
I started as a rotational pharmacist and did rotations in surgical and respiratory wards. I then moved into the role of transformation project manager as maternity cover for a colleague. I really enjoyed this role as it taught me a lot about medicines finance, project management and the importance of medicines security and storage.
I then moved into the role of lead formulary pharmacist, where I've been for the past two and a half years which is a really interesting and challenging role. I work with different teams and with the Integrated Care Boards to improve our joint formulary and medicines provision. I recently started as lead HIV pharmacist, which is a role I do a part-time split with my formulary role for now.
Why you like working at CUH?
I like working at CUH for the incredible variety of experiences you get in clinical and nonclinical roles due to the size of the trust.
I also enjoy that there is so much opportunity in the variety of roles that you can do within the organisation.
What does a usual day look like for you?
As I work a split post, a typical day for me would involve meeting the formulary team at the start of the day. We discuss urgent applications for non formulary medicines and allocate work within the team to ensure they are processed. After this we may have meetings with the Integrated care board over NICE Technology Appraisal Implementation plans or business cases for new medicines within the region.
A significant amount of time is spent on checking business cases and evidence submissions for medicines use within the trust, and ensuring correct paperwork is completed for new policies concerning medicines, and of course creating the drugs and therapeutics committee agenda.
In the afternoon I then work in the virology team. This involves a lot of training right now, but hopefully soon will involve doing clinics with the rest of the team, sitting in on multidisciplinary team meetings and reviewing patients pharmaceutical care to ensure they are on the right regimens for them.
My main focus will be participating in clinics, helping with screening for interactions, helping with adherence checks and processing medicine orders.
Tell us about a case study/experience at CUH that really stands out to you.
During the pandemic I was involved in the vaccine hub that was run for staff and patients. This time stands out in my mind as a time where many people really pulled together to organise the centre and ensure it got up and running in an incredibly short amount of time. I got to know lots of pharmacy technicians, pharmacists and nurses there which was lovely.
How do you feel your role benefits our patients?
When I started my role as formulary pharmacist, I inherited a business case that had not gone through for many years because of numerous set backs. It was for a multiple sclerosis drug that did not have any funding attached to its implementation, which meant a business case had to be completed to fund it. I worked for months with the integrated care board, the consultant team, and the finance team to get it approved and onto our formulary.
I know that this will benefit many patients and hopefully have a really positive impact, as will many of the business cases I have worked on in my role.