A view from the Highlands – snap shots of the big picture

The presentation will highlight the advances made within primary care pharmacy services across NHS Highland. It will touch on developments in patient facing services, electronic communication, data analysis and education and training. It will also discuss the application of lean management principles to ensure staff work in fulfilling roles allowing them to work to their full potential.  

Pharmacy Anywhere started with a problem: NHS Highland has a large remote and rural area, and a need to provide pharmaceutical care for patients of dispensing practices. Recruitment of pharmacists in remote areas is challenging, and asking pharmacists to drive to these locations is a waste of their professional time. So NHS Highland turned to telehealth. Pharmacy Anywhere uses two forms of telehealth to deliver pharmaceutical care: remote access to medical records and remote consulting with patients at home. Patients receive a medication review with a pharmacist who ensures their medicines are safe and effective by providing advice and using prescribing to change medicines where necessary. The result is a service that is not only a solution for rural areas but also a way to provide sustainability to pharmaceutical care services everywhere. It delivers a more responsive service and enables pharmacists to live and work exactly where they want. Most importantly, it’s a service that patients like.

Catriona Innes was formerly the Lead Clinical Pharmacist for NHS Orkney and has recently taken up a position as an academic practitioner within NHS Highland and in partnership with the Robert Gordon University.  She has a special interest in remote and rural pharmacy practice and part of her current role is to develop, deliver and evaluate a Pharmacy Longitudinal Clerkship within primary care in NHS Highland.

Karin Macaskill: I have worked in mental health pharmacy in secondary care since 1990, joining the hospital pharmacy team at the old Craig Dunain Hospital in Inverness as a basic grade pharmacist.
I worked for many years as a specialist clinical pharmacist before taking on my current role as principal pharmacist for mental health and learning disabilities in 2017. Although still based in secondary care, we are currently developing our role to also provide a mental health pharmacy service to primary care in North Highland.