Patient Activation Episodes

Are your medicines actually working for you? We are joined by Professor Nick Barber — pharmacist, academic and author of the new book How to take Drugs — for a sharp, eye-opening conversation about why medicines so often fail in the real world

How do we manage Chronic Pain? We talk to Louise Trewern who has herself lived with chronic pain since childhood. After years of strange illnesses, infections and persistent pain Louise was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and prescribed a stupor-inducing cocktail of opioids, antidepressants and benzodiazepines.

A fantastic chat this week we talk to Paul Woodgate who as well as having Type II Diabetes and Parkinson’s disease is an advocate for patients in the design of healthcare services. We hear how this important role has evolved from being the oft ignored voice at the back of the room to being a central part of service design.

We are joined in this episode by Rachel Power, Chief Executive of the Patients Association - an independent patient charity campaigning for improvements in health and social care for patients. We discuss the concerns that patients are bringing to the Patients Association which include medicines information and communication. Are patient information leaflets best used as wallpaper..?

As a prelude to our next episode, where we discuss the issue of pain and opioid dependency, we are replaying a classic from the Aural Apothecary Archive. Tracy Brown – an award winning pharmacist running primary care pain clinics.

The Godfather of Shared Decision Making (SDM) has spoken, so listen up! Professor Alf Collins is currently NHS England’s Clinical Director for personalised care but he was a community consultant in pain management for many years and worked with the Health Foundation helping lead applied research and implementation programmes in person centred care

What is more important? Quality of life or length of life? A question that our guest, Deborah Duval, faces on a daily basis and she shares with us her experiences of being a recipient of multiple transplants and how she balances a busy lifestyle with a gruelling and complex treatment regimen

We’re back! This series we are focussing on the patient and their experiences of medicines and we start with a cracker! Graham brings his expertise working for the pharmaceutical industry and as a pharmacologist to helping people understand and use their medicines through the fantastic website www.meandmymedicines.org.uk

In this episode we talk to Dr Ben Allen. A GP partner and Clinical Director for Primary Care in Sheffield, Ben is passionate about empowering patients to understand the health system in order to improve their experience of care.

We chat to Dr Wasim Baqir - a senior pharmacist from the Pharmacy Integration Programme at NHS England. Was takes us through his career and work with developing pharmacy services with NHS England and in particular we discuss his work on medicines optimisation in care homes as part of the Health Foundations Shine Programme – a genuine game-changer.

A real pleasure this week to welcome one the Pharmaceutical Journal's ‘Women to Watch in 2022’ Nkiruku Umuaru. Nikkie is currently the Pharmacy Foundation Head of School, Interim Education and Postgraduate Pharmacy Lead at the University of Herefordshire. We chat to Nikkie about medicines in older people, and in particular how to have good conversations with them about their medicines.

A fascinating episode this week where we talk to Tracy Brown – an award winning pharmacist working in Glasgow. As well as running primary care pain clinics Tracy runs the Pain Teach and Treat Programme. We chat about the difficulties of supporting people with chronic pain along with the concept of Analgesic Stewardship.