NHS

It has been an enormous privilege and I have been fortunate enough to be asked to speak at several weddings, forums all over the world, and even three eulogies. Two of these requests came from patients’ families, and at the last one the priest joked he was scared because it sounded like I could do his job! But an old university friend who’d been let down at the last minute gave me a unique invitation that I couldn’t refuse. We met at her local town hall, which was stuffed to the gunwales with people who’d donated prizes. There were dozens of them, and I know because I was the auctioneer.

Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) still have potential to improve health and care despite a bumpy start, says a new report

Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin questions NHS England's plans for sore throat 'test and treat' plans

For most of us, the realms of IT stretch to sitting down with a cuppa, cranking up the computer, deleting every third email on the basis that if it was important they’d send it again, and checking the news on an app. I am no different, although I did chair the Pan- Pharmacy Information Management and Technology Group for six years after arguing how valuable such a committee would be for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. It’s now called the Pharmacy Digital Forum and is no less important. When we started out we were talking about IT being a luxury to help our workload. Now it’s an obligatory tool we can’t do without. Back then we were about doing more with our glorified labelling machines.

Your questions on the NHS flu vaccination service answered by the NPA

Pharmacy Voice calls for profession to be more involved in discussions about its future

The season of flu vaccination is upon us and I have been busy doing my online refresher training, promoting the service, getting the staff trained up, checking and signing PGDs, notifying NHS England and ‘prepping’ the PR. Last year I alone did 800 NHS and private vaccinations and, although we can vaccinate right through until March 2017, the next two months without doubt will be our busiest – so busy that I envisage we will transmogrify from a community pharmacy into a ‘co-immunity pharmacy’!

Community pharmacy delivers more in benefits than it receives in compensation, says PwC

NHS Alliance calls for “more proactive action” towards a new model of community pharmacy-led care

Pharmacists should focus on medicines optimisation and the prevention of ill health, says Society

I write something, press the button and wonder. I wonder who will read it and what response it will have. A few months ago I wrote about the junior doctors’ strike, and by about lunchtime my Facebook page and in-box had melted. Blimey, are there some hacked-off junior doctors out there! If there was a composite letter it would say: “Thrilled to become a doctor, hate what the profession will become”. Add to that, “wish I did something else”, and you’ll get the flavour.

This is the first in a series of articles about why and how independent pharmacists can adapt to the rapidly changing landscape around them.

An independent review of community pharmacy is a good idea, but why has it taken so long?

It's a strange time of day, 3am. Quiet. Just the occasional creak from the central heating. The birds can't quite decide if it's time to announce the dawn. To the east, a finger of cold light nudges into the horizon, turning the Vantablack into Payne's Grey. Unfortunately I’m appreciating all of this because I'm ill. Since January I've been a patient of the NHS during the week and a victim at the weekends. It’s a contrast like no other. Longer waiting times, being forgotten, lost blood results, and I'm not exaggerating.

Iain Duncan Smith recently created a furore when he resigned from the government as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. Yet, in the midst of the media storm his resignation created, an equally sensational story about the NHS crept under the radar. It came from former Lib Dem MP and minister in the coalition government David Laws, and it concerned the vexed question of how much extra money the NHS actually needs up to the year 2020.

Never a week goes by these days when the NHS isn’t an entire news story. Normally we would admire, empathise and support the stresses and pressures, but until you become a patient you can’t really write a meaningful sentence about it. Since January I’ve had a bad upper respiratory tract infection. What started as a few days of non-stop coughing gave way to conking out mid-cough. It happened anytime, anywhere and after the frequency of attacks increased from once daily up to 10 or more times daily, I called 111.

I am profoundly disturbed by the government’s decision to cut our funding by 6 per cent: it is no less than an act of wanton destruction. By the government’s own estimates, as many as 3,000 pharmacies could be forced out. Obviously, our representative bodies should present a united front to fight this cut, but from what I have seen they haven’t actually grasped the underlying issue – that this is simply another step in a cynical assault on the NHS.Pharmacy Voice produced the most vigorous protest, but it won’t have the slightest effect.

Antibiotic prescribing down 7.9 per cent in 2015 compared to 2014

NHS is failing to use self care to tackle rising demand for scarce resources, says report

Up to £150,000 available to each CCG to fund measures to tackle antimicrobial resistance