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 can the multi-disciplinary team support it? We chat to Esther about helping older people to live better lives, the risks of decompensation and...

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 campaign. One of the main aims of Realistic Medicine is for people using healthcare services and their families to feel empowered to discuss their...

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 not Bring. A joyous and fascinating episode where we delve into the art and practice of prescribing in children. In our micro discussion we discuss...

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 practising GP, a professor of primary health care at the University of Nottingham and an NIHR Senior Investigator. In 2012, Tony and his team...

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 move toward seeing HIV alongside any other chronic condition. Sally has also been instrumental in developing and promoting the use of naloxone and...

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 striking doctors on health outcomes? Bapu is Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and a physician in the Department of Medicine...

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 play in improving the treatment of Parkinson's disease. We discuss the role medicines now play in his life, his experience of healthcare and the...

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? How should NICE determine Quality of Life? And what is it that Gimmo and Steve are drinking?! 2023 was also a year of loss. The team reflects on...

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 book, Rebalancing Medicine, where he shares his story and ideas for the future of medicine, including prescribing. We hear about the concept of ‘Time...

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 chat to Louise about how she discovered a different approach to self-management that she attributes to saving her life. It is a story that challenges...

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 central part of service design. Our micro-discussion continues our examination of the Sunday Times Article “The NHS is flatlining - here’s how...

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 transformative effect a change in drugs has had on her life. It is a miraculous story. Our micro-discussion continues our examination of 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 which Liz talks about the stuff no one else will. As well as her experience of cancer, Liz discusses her experiences of sexism, she tells us what...

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-bending journey into the world of psychedelics. This is one trip you will not want to miss. Our micro-discussion continues our examination of the...

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 bringing to the Patients Association which include medicines information and communication. Our micro-discussion continues our examination of...

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 issued in England. We will pick up on this guidance next time. In the meantime enjoy this prelude… This was a fascinating episode where we talked to...

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 implementation programmes in person centred care. We go very deep on this one, and it is all very Radio 4, but we discuss the complexities of the...

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 around if a loyal fan … Jonathan Underhill is a consultant clinical adviser for NICE and has a research interest in Evidence-Informed Decision...

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 being a recipient of multiple transplants and how she balances a busy lifestyle with a gruelling and complex treatment regimen. Can you imagine what...

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 www.meandmymedicines.org.uk. We chat to Graham about his own experiences taking medicines and the approach of the health services to supporting...

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 been. We discuss the role that community pharmacy has played in these unprecedented times and the national efforts underway to tackle...

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 Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (18-24th November) aims to increase awareness of global antimicrobial resistance and to...

Episode 4.10 – Professor Claire Thompson – Badly Behaved Molecules 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 footballer who in 2020 launched Girls in Football Teams to support the...

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. You can find our more about Ben Allen on Twitter; https://twitter.com/BenAllenGP We chat to Ben about how, in his new role as Clinical Director...