Karen Carter a Senior Secretary to the Gastroenterology Consultants at the Trust has won an ‘Employee of the month’ award for her work with the Pharmacy department which made savings on prescription drugs.
Chairman Steve Phoenix with Karen Carter
Janki Patel, Lead Pharmacist Specialist Medicine who nominated Karen said: “Karen, as the Secretary, has gone out of her way to find out who the lead Pharmacist is for gastroenterology and work closely with them to understand the FP10 processes and other prescribing pathways for drugs. As a result of her initiative a new method for providing governance around prescribing has been introduced, that gives greater control without affecting the patient’s experience. For example one prescription was challenged and changed that saved the Trust £1,500 as a result of her intervention. It also had an impact on patient care as the new prescription was more readily available and avoided a delay whilst a special was ordered.
Janki went on to say: “Karen has taken the time to understand the formulary, high cost drugs and shared care guidelines which can be difficult for even clinical staff to understand. Through this she has been able to support the clinicians within gastroenterology spread her good practice by getting colleagues involved and sharing her knowledge. This allows patients to get their treatment closer to home and has helped empower local GPs to prescribe for their patients as per the local formulary. This has a system wide benefit by freeing up consultant time to treat more complex cases. This is an exemplary example of the trust values of working together, being engaged and involving themselves in driving an improvement as a result of seeing the potential for a process to be changed. This is above and beyond her role within the organisation and should be acknowledged.”
Karen was presented with her award by Trust Chairman, Steve Phoenix.