By Dave Branford, Chief Mental Health Pharmacist

Mental Awareness Health Week starts today (21-28 May). The theme for Mental Health Awareness Week (run by the Mental Health Foundation) is altruism – Doing Good Does You Good. The week will focus on how by helping others you can help yourself, including random acts of kindness, volunteering and peer support

So how altruistic am I? Do I go that extra mile for people with mental health problems? I probably do because it is part of being a pharmacist; part of being a healthcare professional.  Somehow it is different when it is a patient. I am quite happy to close the door and turn off the computer when it is just dealing with never ending paperwork but when it is a person – that’s different. Altruism –going the extra mile is in the blood of pharmacy.

But what about mental health? It’s easy for me, you might say, because it’s my job. On a day to day basis I am interacting with some of the most mentally unwell people you can imagine.  Medicines play a huge part in both making and keeping them well.  Most of my career has been in mental health. What about the rest of the profession! Read more »

By Neal Patel, Head of Corporate Communications

The General medical Council’s new report on prescribing published today, “Investigating the prevalence and causes of prescribing errors in general practice”, shows that while the vast majority of prescribing by GP’s  is safe and effective, around 1 in 20 prescriptions contain an error. The report makes recommendations of ways in which safety and quality of prescribing could be further improved.

The GMC have said that patients and doctors could also benefit from greater involvement ofrom pharmacists in supporting prescribing and monitoring. We would go further and have   a pharmacist working in the practice with GPs, dedicated to patient safety.

GP’s, like pharmacists, are busy people, the demands of modern healthcare provision mean that it’s almost impossible for any one person be on top of all current thinking around illness, treatment and prevention.

Collaboration is key, but often this can be difficult due to poor communication systems and IT. Read more »

By John Betts, Royal Pharmaceutical Society Museum Officer

Given the scientific knowledge we now have about the harmful effects of smoking on health it seems unbelievable that in the past medical professionals viewed smoking as an effective and legitimate medicinal treatment. One of my father’s aunts, who regularly suffered from coughs and sore throats, was told by her doctor in the 1930s to take up smoking to toughen up her throat!

The fascinating, and at times contradictory, relationship between pharmacy and smoking inspired me to curate new Developing Treatments exhibition ‘Going Up in Smoke’ – Smoking and Pharmacy. Read more »

By Howard Duff, RPS Director for England

The UK’s cancer survival rates lag behind those of Europe.  One reason for this is that patients often present when their cancer is quite advanced, meaning their treatment options are more limited and their lives shortened as a result.  Detecting cancer earlier is essential to the one in three of us who will develop the disease during our lifetime.

By Jonathan Simms, Clinical Director of Pharmacy, Aneurin Bevan Health Board

Aneurin Bevan Health Board launched a campaign at the end of January this year as part of an initiative to raise awareness of medicine waste, how medicines are wasted and the part that patients and the public can play in helping to reduce this waste.

Medicines play an important part in promoting well-being, preventing ill-health and managing disease.  However, few of us think about the medicines that we waste, how they are disposed of, or how much they cost. Read more »

By Neal Patel, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Head of Corporate Communications

Throwing away medicines rather than using them as intended is a huge problem.

At time when the NHS is having to find £20 billion pounds worth of savings it’s absolutely right that we should all focus on areas on efficiency which feel like (financial) gain with very little, (service loss) pain.

The York Health Economics Consortium, and The School of Pharmacy, University of London, founds that in England in 2009 NHS primary and community care prescription medicines waste cost £300 million.

That is a lot of hip operations. Read more »

By Steve Tomlin, Consultant Pharmacist, paediatrics

Paracetamol is the most commonly used drug to treat children, often without the help of a healthcare professional.  There are currently 95 products available on the market. With this wide spread availability of paracetamol products, it is feasible that parents and careers could inadvertently administer more than the recommended daily dose of paracetamol to their child. A new YouGov survey recently commissioned by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society shows that only a quarter of parents know which children medicines, out of those most commonly used, contain paracetamol. This means that they may unintentionally be giving their child simultaneous doses of paracetamol. The risk of accidental overdose is even higher in a busy world where a child is commonly looked after by more than one person and in different settings and carers may be unaware that a dose has already been given.

Whilst taking paracetamol at the recommended dose and frequency is safe, evidence shows that only small increases of just an extra dose a day over the course of three days can potentially cause liver damage. Read more »

by Justine Fox, Volunteer at Ovacome, National Ovarian Cancer Charity

I was diagnosed with Stage 3(c) ovarian cancer (stage 4 is most advanced) in October 2006, aged 35. I had surgery and chemotherapy and am very fortunate to have been in remission since May 2007. My symptoms actually began 5 years prior to my diagnosis.

In 2001 I noticed abdominal bloating and a change in bowel habit (I was rarely ‘normal’). I thought this was due to diet and so began to cut certain foods out; unfortunately nothing changed.
In 2003 I developed pain and tenderness on the right side of my lower abdomen. My GP did a stool test and I was diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). My GP felt this tied in with the bloating and bowel problems.
For 3 more years the bloating and discomfort increased. I regularly visited my GP receiving numerous prescriptions for anti-spasmodic medication without tests.
Further symptoms developed in July 2006. I couldn’t eat more than a few mouthfuls of food before feeling full. I began losing weight generally whilst my abdomen began to swell. I was initially excited about this as I thought I was pregnant – sadly there was no baby (I had 9l of fluid in my abdomen!). Read more »

by Lindsey Gilpin, pharmacist and EPB Chair

I have been a smoking councillor for about 10 years. I am happy to take on anyone and so far the age range has been 12-84 years old. The smoking cessation courses last for 6 weeks, although we, here in our pharmacy, would always support people for longer should they need it.

I suppose my typical client is probably about 30-40 years old and they have been smoking for about twenty years. They have come to realise that their health isn’t something that they can take for granted, as they did in their youth. Often there are children in the family and giving up is prompted by not wanting to expose them to second hand smoke or by slightly older children nagging them to give up. Read more »

By Oliver Gillie BSc PhD FRSA, Health Research Forum

Breast milk would be perfect for babies if we lived like our distant ancestors in central Africa where the sun shines brightly almost everyday and we wore only light clothing or perhaps nothing at all. As it is breast milk of women in Britain and most of Europe contains very little vitamin D and not enough to keep babies in optimum health.

The sun is not strong enough in northern Europe to make any vitamin D for half the year and our cloudy climate means that even in summer we often get little vitamin D from one week to the next. So some 80% of the population have sub-optimal vitamin D levels of the sunshine vitamin in winter and even in summer some 50% are sub-optimal. Read more »