Clinical pharmacists work as part of the general practice team to improve value and outcomes from medicines and consult with and treat patients directly. This includes providing extra help to manage long-term conditions, advice for those on multiple medicines and better access to health checks. The role is pivotal to improving the quality of care and ensuring patient safety.
Having clinical pharmacists in GP practices means that GPs can focus their skills where they are most needed, for example on diagnosing and treating patients with more complex conditions. This helps GPs to manage the demands on their time.
Here at Cradley Surgery we have 3 pharmacists who offer telephone calls called Steffan, Adela and Saba. Please be assured if any of our clinical pharmacists call you they work for Cradley Surgery and work closely with our clinicians.
Meet…
Adela
“I am Adela, a clinical pharmacist.
I work remotely for the Surgery.
I have double nationality Spanish and English.
I work at the surgery as part of the healthcare staff. I do medication reviews, queries, audits, and any medicines management task needed to help the GP workload, patients, and the rest of the surgery staff. When I was in Spain, the uni offered us jobs in the UK, I wanted to travel and improve my English, so that was the main reason I ended up in the UK!!
Since I came to the UK, I have been working at community pharmacies, primary care and hospitals.
I have been in the UK for 20 Years, I am married and I have a 10-year-old daughter. I really like face-to-face work, but due to my husband travelling a lot for his job, I am working remotely because help with childcare at the moment,
I really like working for Cradley Surgery because of the really nice patients and staff.
Everybody is very helpful and nice ☺”
Steffan
“As a pharmacist, my main area of focus is around optimising patients’ medications to ensure safe and effective prescribing. This can involve starting, stopping, or reviewing medicines. Any changes to your prescription are discussed with the GP who retains the final sign-off.
Pharmacists also provide advice and guidance to both patients and other practice staff around medicines (including when shortages unfortunately disrupt our best-laid plans!), help with GP surgeries achieving local and national targets and can interpret blood results to ensure patient safety amongst many other things.
I personally work Tuesdays at Cradley surgery, and I am available for face-to-face appointments (or telephone, if you prefer) on Tuesday mornings.”
Adela, Saba and Steffan, along with a number of other remote clinicians, support the work done here at the surgery and also with the other practices in our Primary Care Network.
Cradley Surgery would like to reassure all patients that the whole team, whether based in the surgery or somewhere in the county are here to help you!
