Talking Meds - A PrescQIPP podcast
Engaging conversations about medicines-related dilemmas.
Talking Meds is hosted by Jonathan Underhill who, every two weeks, will chat to a fantastic guest about current medical issues and clinical dilemmas.
Jonathan has a background as a hospital clinical pharmacist but worked for many years at the National Prescribing Centre (NPC) developing innovative ways of teaching therapeutics, evidence-based medicine and clinical decision making to prescribers and their support teams. Until recently, he worked at NICE as a consultant clinical adviser in their Medicines Optimisation Team. He is now Medicines Clinical Adviser at PrescQIPP.
Jonathan and his guests will discuss topics such as new guidance from NICE on menopause, asthma, depression deprescribing and insomnia; how to tackle penicillin allergy de-labelling.
There will also be a series on ’Sensible prescribing in Older people with Jonathan and Lucy’, with consultant geriatrician and author Lucy Pollock.
PrescQIPP is a Community Interest Company. We operate on a not-for-profit basis for the benefit of NHS patients and organisations and help NHS organisations to improve medicines-related care to patients. Find out more here: https://www.prescqipp.info/
Talking Meds - A PrescQIPP podcast
1. A day in the life of a primary care based clinical pharmacist with Magnus Hird
Welcome to the first episode of Talking Meds and the PrescQIPP podcast, engaging conversations about medicines-related dilemmas. Today, your host Jonathan Underhill, Medicines Clinical Adviser at PrescQIPP, talks to Magnus Hird about his role, how he prioritises people for medication review as well as two current safety issues that have recently been in the news.
Magnus is a pioneer of clinical pharmacists working in General Practice and one of the first ever pharmacist independent prescribers. He was one of the first cohort of NPC Trainers, running educational events in the North West. He now works 2 days per week in a busy general practice in Blackpool, with the rest of his week occupied as clinical lead for ambulance commissioning, covering the 999 paramedic emergency service, NHS111 and patient transport services across the northwest, and as a clinical advisor for urgent care to the NHS England regional team. He also runs a smallholding farm in the North West of England (follow his antics on various social media outlets via https://sites.google.com/view/monkhallfarm/home
Jonathan and Magnus discuss what a typical day in general practice could look like for Magnus, how he prioritises his workload, deals with complexity and what particular skills a clinical pharmacist brings to the primary care team.
Useful sources discussed include:
PINCER - Pharmacist-led Information technology iNtervention for the reduction of Clinically important ERrors in medicines management
https://healthinnovationwessex.org.uk/projects/56/pincer
Estimating the economic effect of harm associated with high risk prescribing of oral non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in England: population based cohort and economic modelling study. BMJ 2024;386:e077880
https://www.bmj.com/content/386/bmj-2023-077880
Asthma: effect of excess short-acting β2-agonist (SABA) inhaler prescriptions on healthcare resource utilisation
Mark L Levy, Toby GD Capstick and Thomas Antalffy
British Journal of General Practice 2024; 74 (745): 374-376.
https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp24X739089
NICE Guideline - Asthma: diagnosis, monitoring and chronic asthma management (Expected publication date: 27 November 2024)
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/gid-ng10186/documents/450
Useful PrescQIPP resources (need to be registered and logged into the website to access):
Asthma bulletin 251
https://www.prescqipp.info/our-resources/bulletins/bulletin-251-asthma/
PrescQIPP Asthma e-learning course (pay per use)
A new episode of Talking Meds will be available every other Friday.
If you have feedback or suggestions for future topics and guests please submit them to talkingmeds@prescqipp.info
PrescQIPP is funded by the NHS for the NHS, and our aim is to improve medicines-related care for patients. We do this by producing high quality evidence-based resources and training, and by facilitating networks between NHS organisations and professionals.
The majority of pharmacists and other healthcare professionals across the UK can access our resources by registering and logging on to our website. If you have any difficulty accessing the website you can email help@prescqipp.info and we’ll aim to sort things out for you.
Find out more about PrescQIPP here