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

Shared Decision Making (SDM) 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!

Listen to the Episode

June 7, 2024

6.9 Ann-Marie Goacher. The Eyes: A Window to Our Health

Pain in the eye? It is a red-flag all healthcare professionals are trained to be aware of. But when spotted, who deals with it? We are joined by Specialist Head and Neck Pharmacist Ann Marie Goacher.

Listen to the Episode

May 24, 2024

6.8 Maricarmen Climént - Risky Business - How to communicate uncertainty

How do you explain the risks and benefits of a medicine when you yourself don’t really know? We chat to Maricarmen Climént about risk communication and how we best help patients to make better choices in the face of uncertainty?

Listen to the Episode

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.

Listen to the Episode

March 22, 2024

6.5 Alison Tennant - Won’t someone think of the children?

It takes a special sort of person to work in paediatric care. We chat to Alison Tennant, Chief Pharmacist at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Trust about the risks and rewards of working with children and their medicines.

Listen to the Episode

March 8, 2024

6.4 Professor Tony Avery OBE - The Problem with Prescribing?

How do you influence the prescribing habits of an entire country? This is the task of NHS England’s National Clinical Director of Prescribing Professor Tony Avery.

Listen to the Episode

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.

Listen to the Episode

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.

Listen to the Episode

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.

Listen to the Episode

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..?

Listen to the Episode

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.

Listen to the Episode

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

Listen to the Episode

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.

Listen to the Episode

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

Listen to the Episode

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

Listen to the Episode

Aug. 12, 2022

Episode 4.7 - Professor Debi Bhattacharya. System Level Change in The Danger Zone.

We chat to Professor Debi Bhattacharya - Professor of Behavioural Medicine at the University of Leicester and a primary care pharmacist. Debi led on research into a behaviour change toolkit designed to reduce opioid prescribing and is now actively involved in a programme designed to implement this at a systems level.

Listen to the Episode

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.

Listen to the Episode

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.

Listen to the Episode

May 6, 2022

4.1 - Getting Older and how to deal with it - with bestselling author Dr Lucy Pollock

We are joined by Consultant Geriatrician and bestselling author Dr Lucy Pollock. As Lucy tells us - we all become old if we are lucky. But how do we deal with it - as people and as health professionals? We chat about Lucy’s experience in working with the elderly and the importance of honesty, humour and shared decision making.

Listen to the Episode

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.

Listen to the Episode

Nov. 5, 2021

3.4 Professor James McCormack - Bohemian Polypharmacy

This week we are joined from Canada by Professor James McCormack, a pharmacist and co-host of the Best Science Medicine Podcast and is world renowned for his entertaining take on shared decision making and using evidence based information. James also uses music to teach others about polypharmacy and deprescribing. No, really!

Listen to the Episode

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.

Listen to the Episode

June 18, 2021

Episode 2.6 Dr Mark Porter MBE - It shouldn't happen to a vet.

Mark is an NHS GP and award winning journalist. He spends half his week working as a GP partner in rural Gloucestershire, and the rest investigating and reporting on the latest developments in medicine. We chat to Mark about his new practice pharmacy professionals, deprescribing, and the six-week wait for hospital discharge communication.

Listen to the Episode

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.

Listen to the Episode