New pharmacy improves access to medication at Whipps Cross Hospital
Patients at Whipps Cross Hospital can now access their medication and go home more quickly, thanks to a new LloydsPharmacy improving access to over the counter medicines.
Barts Health NHS Trust is working in partnership with Celesio UK, which includes LloydsPharmacy, to provide an additional outpatient dispensary service at Whipps Cross hospital. It follows the launch of a similar service at Newham Hospital last month. This means LloydsPharmacy now operates all four outpatient pharmacies within Barts Health NHS Trust, having provided outpatient dispensary services to St Bartholomew's and The Royal London Hospitals for the last two years.
The Whipps Cross LloydsPharmacy site officially opened at a special event on Monday 19th March. Andy Burton, Director of Community Services at Celesio UK (which includes LloydsPharmacy) said: “Through our partnership with Barts Health, we have already delivered enhanced patient experience and reduced waiting times. Crucially, we have also been able to release clinical capacity for the Trust, which means their teams can spend more time on the wards helping patients that require more urgent care.”
Charlotte Bell, Deputy Clinical Pharmacy Services lead at Barts Health NHS Trust, said: “It’s great to be marking the opening of LloydsPharmacy at Whipps Cross. Central to our work is the provision of a high quality and efficient pharmacy service for all patients and working in partnership with LloydsPharmacy allows us to provide excellent clinical pharmacy care to patients on wards, in specialist areas, and for our outpatients.”
LloydsPharmacy became the first community provider of commissioned outpatient services for the NHS in 2009. They now have over 50 contracts with Trusts to provide outpatient dispensing (OPD) services.