An authentic yet lighthearted take on the world of medicines and healthcare in the UK

Personalised Care Episodes

Oct. 4, 2024

7.1 The Aural Apothecary Analyses! Statins and Shared Decision Making, with Brian Finney and Dr Sam Finnikin

Welcome back to The Aural Apothecary! For our first episode we bring you an exciting new format, where we’ll be diving deeper into some of the recurring themes from our first six series. The Aural Apothecary Analyses!

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June 28, 2024

6.10 Tommy Whitelaw - Intelligent Kindness & Gentle Honesty - Listening is the best medicine

Join us for a joyful exploration of the importance and reality of person centred care with Tommy Whitelaw from Person Centred Voices who was a full-time carer for his late mother Joan who had vascular dementia.

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April 12, 2024

6.6 Dr Catherine Labinjoh - Realistic Medicine & The Drug Portal to The World…

Did you know that according to the OECD, a fifth of healthcare costs adds no value to patient care? This, along with the drive for shared decision making is the drive behind Scotland’s ‘Realistic Medicine’ campaign.

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Feb. 23, 2024

6.3  - Sally Kneath, Let's talk about Sex - Living with HIV

A lively chat as we are joined by sexual health pharmacist Sally Kneath. Sally busts the myths that often surround people living with HIV and details how it is managed today - perhaps not how you would imagine.

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Dec. 8, 2023

The Aural Apothecary Almanac 2023 - Artificial Intelligence, the Year of Community Pharmacy and the impact of loss

Pull up a chair and join the Three Apothecaries around the fire for our end-of-year chat with friends and colleagues Clare Howard and Jonathan Underhill to discuss another dramatic year.

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July 21, 2023

5.10 Professor Neal Maskrey - Rebalancing Medicine

A retired GP and former director of the National Prescribing Centre Professor Neal Maskrey was a pivotal figure in the in the way clinical evidence is presented and used in practice, and an inspiration to many.

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June 29, 2023

5.9 - Louise Trewern - Joining the dots around chronic pain

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.

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June 8, 2023

5.8 - Paul Woodgate - The Patient Voice and the lived reality of Polypharmacy

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.

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May 19, 2023

5.7 Louise Jenkins and Cystic Fibrosis - Not part of my life, but my whole life

A truly joyful patient story when we chat to Louise Jenkins. Cystic Fibrosis is a condition that encompasses your whole life. Louise talks to us about growing up with the condition, balancing the constant need for treatment with trying to grow up normally.Louise describes being ill with CF as ‘like having a second job’, and tells us the transformative effect a change in drugs has had on her life. It is a miraculous story.

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May 5, 2023

5.6 - Dr Liz O' Riordan - The Breast Surgeon who got Breast Cancer

‘Assume I know nothing’ - we are joined today by Dr Liz O’Riordan about the impact having the very condition she was trained to treat had on her, both as a patient and a doctor. As well as her experience of cancer, Liz discusses her experiences of sexism, she tells us what actually goes on in the operating room and what really annoys her about pharmacists.

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April 6, 2023

Episode 5.4 - Rachel Power - Communication, Communication, Communication.

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..?

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March 10, 2023

Aural Apothecary Archives: Tracy Brown – What is Analgesic Stewardship

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.

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Feb. 24, 2023

Episode 5.3 - Professor Alf Collins: No decision about me, without me

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

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Feb. 17, 2023

Episode 2.1 Replay 2023 : Jonathan Underhill, Shared Decision Making , NICE and POOs not DOOs

As a prelude to the next Series 5 episode with Professor Alf Collins, the Godfather of Shared Decision Making, we have dug into the Aural Apothecary Archives and found one of our best episodes about the importance of having meaningful conversations with patients about medicines.

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Feb. 3, 2023

5.2 - Deborah Duval. Let me live! Life as a transplant recipient

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

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Jan. 20, 2023

5.1 - Graham Prestwich - The Patient as a Project Manager

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

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July 29, 2022

4.6 Dr Wasim Baqir – Shine On - Changing lives through improved medicines use in Care Homes.

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.

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June 17, 2022

4.4 - Dr Nkiruka Umaru. Tea, cake and medicines.

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.

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Feb. 11, 2022

Episode 3.9 – Tracy Brown – What is Analgesic Stewardship?

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.

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July 2, 2021

Episode 2.8 - Lelly Oboh - Wicked Problems, Mindlines and the Stripey Zebra.

Lelly began her career in community pharmacy and then worked as a primary care pharmacist, becoming the first UK community based consultant pharmacist in 2007. Her current role is at Guys and St Thomas and involves optimising medicines use in frailty, multimorbidity and polypharmacy.

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May 14, 2021

Episode 2.1 - Jonathan Underhill, Shared Decision Making, NICE and POOs - not DOOs.

Welcome back for series 2! We talk to Jonathan Underhill who is a consultant clinical adviser for NICE and has a research interest in Evidence-Informed Decision Making. We discuss the new NICE 5 year strategy, Shared Decision making and what autobiographies can teach us about human behaviour.

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April 2, 2021

Episode 8 - Ravi Sharma - Pharmacogenomics, Penicillin de-labelling and promoting the pharmacy profession in a pandemic.

Ravi is currently the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Director for England as well as continuing to work as a GP practice prescribing pharmacist. We chat to Ravi about his passion for pharmacogenomics and how it might revolutionise pharmacy practice alongside the role of a professional body in a pandemic.

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