The secret to being the pharmacist every diabetes team wants

Vicky Ruszala is a specialist pharmacist at North Bristol NHS Trust. She works in a specialist capacity with the diabetes and endocrinology team, trying to improve inpatient experience for those with diabetes and reducing errors in diabetes care.  She leads the NBT team quality improvement program, with a current focus on reducing insulin errors and inpatient hypoglycaemia.

Currently she is on secondment to Bath and North East Somerset CCG as a specialist pharmacist in the integrated diabetes service. As well as contributing to strategic changes in the systemic management of diabetes, she is also running independent specialist clinics in GP practices to aid achievement of the three key NICE targets.

For the last 7 years she has been part of the UKCPA Diabetes Group committee, which has allowed her to contribute to raising the standard of diabetes care at a national level, in all healthcare settings. She been the joint chair of this group for the past 5 years.  Currently she is the pharmacist lead of the endocrinology Clinical Reference Group for NHS England and has also worked as pharmacist representative on the guideline development group for the new NICE Type 1 diabetes guideline.

She has been published in a range of journals on different aspects of diabetes care. As a speaker she has had the privilege of attending and speaking at a range of national and international conferences. In addition, she works locally providing diabetes education for primary and secondary care professionals, including pharmacists, nurses and doctors.

This session is designed to get you thinking about the skills you currently offer and those you might need to develop further in your specialist or generalist interest in diabetes . Using the Diabetes UK / UKCPA competency framework for pharmacists in diabetes we want to guide you in developing a portfolio to show how you are an essential part of any diabetes team, regardless of sector and how long you have been qualified.

I believe the session to be advanced level rather than foundation.