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! In this episode, we focus on statins and the importance of shared decision making in healthcare. Inspired by a recent paper in the B…

Join us for the last episode of series six and a joyful exploration of the importance and reality of person centred care. For five years Tommy Whitelaw was a full-time carer for his late mother Joan who had Vascular Dementia. In 2011 he undertook a walk around Scotland’s towns and cities to collect hundreds of life stories and letters detailing the…

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. Ann Marie describes her journey from a local community pharmacist in Ireland to being the lead pharmacist for the head and neck directorate at Univers…

Do Doctors know best? How do you explain the risks and benefits of a medicine when you yourself don’t really know? We chat to Maricarmen Climént, Research and Editorial Officer at Sense about Science about risk communication and how we best help patients to make better choices in the face of uncertainty? Maricarmen has a diverse background in scien…

We chat to Physiotherapist and Consultant Practitioner, Esther Clift about her pioneering role in the management of frailty. A varied career, where a passion for working with older people was ignited in Southampton, where she undertook an MSc in Gerontology. She currently leads an Acute Frailty Service on the Isle of Wight. What is frailty and how …

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. We chat to Dr Catherine Labinjoh, Consultant Cardiologist and National Clinical Advisor to the Realistic Medicine programme about the …

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. Parents going home with bags of bottles, the difficulties of shared decision making and instead of DNA we have DNB - Did no…

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. We chat to Tony about this new, groundbreaking leadership role and techniques used to influence and improve prescribing practice across a whole nation. In addition to this role Tony is a…

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. We reflect on the impact of the stigma caused by the 80’s ‘Don’t die of ignorance’ campaigns that still exists today and how we need to mov…

We are joined by Professor Bapu Jena. Physician, economist, author of ‘Random Acts of Medicine’ and host of the superb ‘Freakonomics MD’ podcast, we explore with Bapu the concept of ‘natural experimentation’. How might a marathon be bad for your health? Why might you be safer not seeing a cardiologist after a heart attack? What is the impact of str…

For our first episode of series 6 we are delighted to be joined by former BBC reporter Rory Cellen-Jones. As well as a successful career in journalism, Rory is also part of “Movers and Shakers’ - the hit podcast about life with Parkinsons. Rory was diagnosed with Parkinsons in 2019 and has spent recent years investigating the role technology can pl…

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.What will 2023 be remembered for? Was it the Year of Community Pharmacy or of Artificial Intelligence? Who would win in a fight – ChatGPT or a clinical pharmacist? …

A pivotal figure in the development of Evidence Based Practice and an inspiration to many, it was our real pleasure this week to chat to Professor Neal Maskrey. A retired GP and former director of the National Prescribing Centre, Neal has been a key figure in the way clinical evidence is presented and used in practice. He tells us about his new boo…

How do we manage Chronic Pain? This week we talk to Louise Trewern of Living Well with Pain, 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. We ch…

Our new website is now live - www.theauralapothecary.com 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 …

A truly joyful patient story this week 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 …

Our new website is now live - www.theauralapothecary.com ‘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. Liz is a renowned author, international speaker and host of the fantastic podcast ‘Don’t Ignore the Elephant’ in wh…

Our new website is now live - www.theauralapothecary.com We are joined today by former police officer and creator of cognitive hypnotherapy Trevor Silvester. But what is Cognitive Hypnotherapy and how does it work? We discuss the role of alternative therapies such as this in holistic models of care. Trevor also takes us through his personal mind-be…

Our new website is now live - www.theauralapothecary.com 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. Are patient information leaflets best used as wallpaper? We discuss the concerns that patients are b…

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. This is particularly timely as this is also the month that guidance on ‘Optimising personalised care for adults prescribing medicines associated with dependence or withdrawal symptoms’ has been is…

The Godfather of Shared Decision Making (SDM) has spoken, so listen up! (apologies for his microphone quality though) 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 imp…

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. Enjoy first time around if a new listener, or even more second time ar…

What is more important? Quality of life or length of life? A question that our guest, Deborah Duval, faces on a daily basis. Deborah is Managing Editor at Kidney Care UK and lead for www.kidneykitchen.org - a place where eating is de-medicalised and where celebrity chefs cook kidney-patient friendly meals. She shares with us her experiences of bein…

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 (and one of the people behind the superdrug Tamoxifen) to helping people understand and use their medicines through the fantastic website …

Join the Three Apothecaries and some old friends as they gather around the fire and reflect on the year gone by. Jamie, Gimmo and Steve the Chemist are joined by friends of the show Clare Howard and Jonathan Underhill to discuss the highs and lows of 2022. Starting with COVID and ending with Strep A, what a year for healthcare and medicines it has …

For this special episode the Apothecaries are joined by Professor Phil Howard ,OBE, to discuss Antimicrobial Resistance and what we can all do to tackle it. Phil is well placed to discuss this with us as the Antimicrobial Stewardship Lead for the North-East & Yorkshire region of England and the former President of the British Society of Antimicrobi…

What do football and pharmaceutical science have in common?! In this, our final episode of series four, we go out on a high chatting to multi-award winning scientist, entrepreneur and philanthropist Professor Claire Thompson. Not only is Claire the Founder and CEO of Agility Life Sciences, a drug formulation development company, she is a former foo…

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. His main area of interest is exploring how people can reach their full potential through building high performing teams. …

Something different again this episode - we chat to Dave Murdoch - an Advanced Paramedic Practitioner with over 28 years of experience. Dave has worked in a wide variety of prehospital settings; ambulances, cars, helicopters as well as Urgent Care Centres, Emergency Departments and General Practice surgeries, and almost 3 years of medical developme…

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. https://www.uea.ac.uk/groups-an…

We chat to Dr Wasim Baqir - a senior pharmacist from the Pharmacy Integration Programme at NHS England. Prior to this he led the national Medicines Optimisation in Care Homes scheme for NHS England. He currently works across a number of areas (primary care networks, health inequalities, community pharmacy, overprescribing and integrated care system…

We have a special treat for you this week as we share the recording of our live show at this year’s Clinical Pharmacy Congress. And as an added bonus you get two guests for the price of one! Our first guest is Kulpna Daya. Kulpna is a pharmacy technician and co-founder of Pharmacy Technicians of Colour. As an educational specialist, Kulpna has exte…

This week we welcome Pharmacy's own National Treasure Professor Mahendra Patel OBE. Mahendra is a multi-award winning pharmacist and academic with professorial roles in a number of universities. He has led research into health inequalities, diabetes and COVID amongst many others. He is a Fellow of both NICE and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and …

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 Training Lead at Health Education England as well Postgraduate Pharmacy Lead at the University of Herefordshire. We chat to Nikkie about medicines in older p…

In this week’s episode we are thrilled to be joined by Delyth James. Professor James is Professor of Health Psychology in Pharmacy Practice at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Delyth is a pharmacist with experience of training and education and working as a renal pharmacist in hospitals across the world. Delyth’s main area of research is ‘Health Ps…

In this week’s episode we talk about Prescribing in Prison. We are joined by Rebecca Hunter who as well as being a prison pharmacist is a clinical leadership fellow working in Health Education and Improvement Wales. Rebecca is passionate about the role that pharmacy has in supporting those in prison environments as well as improving health inequali…

Welcome back for Series 4. 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 ma…

In this, our first ever live show we talk to our first ever patient! Jamie Brewster is an architect with the DB3 group and shares with us, and our live audience, his experiences as a cancer patient. It is a heartfelt story peppered with humour and pathos, and one that offers healthcare professionals plenty of food for thought. As usual with The Aur…

It is the end of Series 3 and we go out on a high! We are joined by Dr Pete Turton. Pete qualified from Liverpool with a degree in medicine and a Masters degree in uterine physiology. He is currently undergoing dual training in both anaesthesia and intensive care. He has also tried his hand as a stand-up comedian and is one of the stars of ‘The Pla…

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. As ever we throw a bit of be…

We go slightly left of field in this week's episode when we talk to award winning clinical negligence lawyer Stephen Webber. Stephen has been involved in many medicines related cases and talks to us about the Law of Tort and how healthcare professionals can better manage risk. We chat about recent proposals to replace the negligence system with one…

We are joined in this episode by Lisa Green. Lisa is a medicines safety specialist with a pharmacy career spanning 20 years and was named as one of the Pharmaceutical Journal's ‘Women to Watch’ in 2020. Aside from her day job as Head of Pharmacy Operations for one of Europe’s largest mental health charities, Lisa is a farm and animal health consult…

Ho Ho Ho and a Joyeux Noel to you all. Join us for our end-of-year Christmas Special in which we are joined by previous guests, friends and colleagues for a cosy (and virtual) fireside festive chat. What a line-up we have for you joining the Apothecaries; From Episode 1.2 - Claire Howard, Medicines Optimisation Pharmacist and Wiganer From Episode 1…

We are joined by Tracy Lyons. Tracy is a medicines optimisation pharmacist and the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association’s Environment & Sustainability advisor. In March 2021 Tracy helped to form ‘Pharmacy Declares’, a self-convened group of ‘climate conscious’ pharmacy professionals calling for our professional/regulatory bodies to 1) declare a climate…

This episode it is our honour to be joined by Dr Diane Ashiru-Oredope. Diane is the Lead Pharmacist for the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and Healthcare Associated Infections, UK Health Security Agency and the Global AMR lead for the Commonwealth Pharmacists Association. Diane developed and leads the international Antibiotic Guardian campaign and …

This week we are joined from Canada by Professor James McCormack. James is 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! We chat to Ja…

Ever heard the term Value Based Healthcare and wondered what it meant? Well wonder no more. This week's guest, Dr Sally Lewis explains all. Sally is the National Clinical Director for Value Based Healthcare and Prudent Health in Wales as well as a practicing GP. We chat to Sally live from her shed about the importance of an outcome focussed approac…

Episode 3.2 - Chris Martin - Good for us, Good for you, Good for Everybody In this episode it is our great pleasure to be joined by Chris Martin. Chris is a community pharmacist by background with extensive experience in a wide variety of Public Sector Roles. These have included being Chairman of Hywel Dda University Health Board and the Welsh NHS …

Episode 3.1 - Dr Louise Newson - The Menopause Dr. The Aural Apothecaries are back for Series 3! In this episode it is our great pleasure to interview Dr Louise Newson - also known as the Menopause Doctor. As well as a GP and menopause specialist, Louise is also host of the popular podcast ‘My Menopause Doctor’. We chat to Louise about how the Meno…

We welcome the final guest for series 2 - Dr Mark Holland. Mark is Associate Professor at the University of Bolton and formerly a Consultant in geriatric medicine at Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester, before moving into Acute Medicine. He was formerly President of the Society for Acute Medicine where he did so many TV interviews on behalf of his pro…