Pharmacy team wins national award

The Pharmacy team at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital has won a national award for promoting patient safety in medicines management.

The NHS Alliance Acorn 2007 Awards have seen the NNUH Pharmacy team judged runner up in the Clinical Governance category. The award is to be presented at the NHS Alliance conference to be held on 22/23rd November in Manchester.

The NNUH award submission involved work lead by Principal Pharmacist (Medicines Management) Yung Strawbridge who along with colleagues developed quarterly medication briefings for clinical staff regarding high-risk drugs and medication issues to be used as an education and training tool.

The briefings provides information on medication related issues covering good nursing practice and prescribing advice. It also has some case studies so that staff can take the examples on in their daily clinical practice. The medications briefings are produced in collaboration with Consultants, Specialist Pharmacists and Specialist Nurses.

“The positive effect to patient care is high as the medication briefings have been used to highlight key safety issues around medicines that staff can all learn from,” said Yung.