February 2024
University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust
Providing outstanding integrated care and making a difference to people's lives #1BigTeam
Coming Soon: New Boots pharmacy to open at Derriford Hospital
We are delighted to announce a new partnership for our outpatient Pharmacy in Spring 2024.
The bigger, modern, and welcoming new outpatient pharmacy will double in size and be run by Boots in partnership with University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust. The unit will open on Saturdays, offering a convenient and modern service to patients.
As a result of the new partnership, patients will now have the option to collect medicines from their local pharmacy through the Boots network in Plymouth and the surrounding areas.
Chief Pharmacist & Clinical Director of Medicines Optimisation, Kandarp Thakkar, said: “We’re delighted to make this announcement and are confident that thousands of patients who use this service every week will have a far more convenient service.
“In addition, through our partnership with Boots, there will also be everyday items that visitors and staff can purchase.”
Ashley Littlewood-Miller, National Hospitals Manager said: “We’re thrilled to be delivering the outpatient pharmacy contract for this NHS site and we are excited to see our partnership with the Trust develop, we look forward to the project coming to fruition and welcoming our first customers in spring.”
Derriford Hospital’s outpatient pharmacy has faced growing demand with over 155,300 items dispensed over the past 12 months, an average of nearly 3000 items per week.
The new site will move from its current location near the hospital’s main entrance to a 155m2 unit conveniently located on the ground floor of the multi-storey car park, with drop-off spaces and parking for blue badge holders.
Ann James steps down as Chief Executive of University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust
After more than 12 years leading the Trust and 35 years in the NHS, Ann James has taken the decision to stand down from her post as our Chief Executive.
Ann began her NHS career as a management trainee in 1989 and held many key leadership positions across the NHS in the south west, before taking up her current post in September 2012. She has been an exemplary and incredibly driven, public servant and made a significant contribution to improving healthcare across Devon and Cornwall, most notably in Plymouth, in very challenging circumstances.
Chair James Brent said: “I want to lead the thanks to Ann for her commitment, dedication, professionalism and her very values-driven leadership but I know I will not be alone in thanking her. Many colleagues and indeed colleagues in partner organisations appreciate Ann’s collaborative and personal approach. She has been a passionate advocate for equity and fairness, in terms of protected characteristics but also focusing on reducing inequity arising from deprivation. ?
“Under Ann’s leadership UHP has achieved so much – often in difficult circumstances – including her leadership through the difficult pandemic period, her embodiment of the values that are the beating heart of this organisation, her passionate support of UHP’s role as a teaching hospital and military city; her development of the Healthy Lives Partnership with Livewell Southwest and securing in excess of ￡300m investment for capital developments such as a new REI and the new Community Diagnostic Centre as well as for the Urgent and Emergency Care Centre (Phase 1 of Future Hospitals). She has also led regionally during this time, for example chairing the Peninsula Pathology Network, the Peninsula Cancer Alliance and has been Chair of the Southwest Leadership and Talent Academy.
“We are all hugely grateful to Ann for her commitment to the Trust, its staff and the communities that we serve and we wish her the very best as she heads into the next phase of her journey.”
Ann said: “It has been the greatest honour to play a part in the incredible journey of UHP and it was never going to be easy, or feel like the right time, to step away from being Chief Executive. The teams at UHP lead with compassion, give outstanding care and work hard every day to deliver clinical excellence despite many challenges. It has been a heartfelt honour to be part of that and of all my 35 years in the NHS, the time I spent at UHP will undoubtedly be the years I will treasure and remember the most. University Hospitals Plymouth has a very exciting future ahead, with so many wonderful people working in the organisation and I wish all of my colleagues all the very best?for the next 12 years and beyond.”
Ann will step down as Chief Executive?on 31 March 2024?and the recruitment process to appoint an interim and then substantive successor will begin shortly.
UHP Doctor selected to represent UK at the 2024 European Winter School of Internal Medicine
Dr Mustafa Hussein Ajlan Al-Jarshawi,?NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow?in?Medicine?at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (UHP), has been selected by the Royal College of Physicians to represent UK trainee doctors in stage 1 and stage 2 internal medicine specialty training programmes in the 2024 European School of Internal Medicine (ESIM), organised by the European Federation of Internal Medicine (EFIM). The Swedish International Medicine Society (SIM) is hosting the 12th edition of the school in February 2024 in Bj?rkliden, Sweden, where 50 junior doctors from across 25 countries in Europe will come to represent their country and benefit from specialist training, workshops, and lectures in Internal Medicine alongside networking and sharing knowledge from different countries and practices.
Mustafa is the only doctor selected to represent the UK, and says he feels honoured to attend: “The application process for this was very competitive and extensive, I feel extremely privileged to represent my fellow doctors enrolled in both core and higher medical specialty training programmes across the UK in this event.”
“I am looking forward to getting more practice with hands on training, and learning new knowledge and skills that I will be able to use in my day-to-day clinical practice, as well as pass on what I’ve learned to others when I return home.”
The doctors attending the winter school will also have a chance to socialise and make lasting connections throughout the trip. “I am also really looking forward to the social aspect of it, as it will allow me to learn from other physicians and build valuable connections.”
Dr. Al-Jarshawi is also looking forward to his time visiting Sweden: “This trip is extremely exciting for me on a personal level as well, there are a lot of things I would like to do during my time in Sweden. I am particularly looking forward to visiting the Nobel assembly at Karolinska institutet that awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and seeing the Northern Lights.”
Mustafa has been awarded the ‘Myre Sim funding’ from the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh to help facilitate his participation in this event.
University Hospitals Plymouth plans for new Urgent Treatment Centre
University Hospitals Plymouth is pleased to announce plans to build a new Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) and Fracture Clinic.
The new UTC will be in addition to the Cumberland Centre located in Devonport, Plymouth and the Tavistock and Kingsbridge Minor Injury Units and will help to reduce footfall and take the pressure off the main Derriford Emergency Department, improving the care delivered to patients.
Dr Anne Hicks, Consultant in Emergency Medicine said: “This is a positive step for the people of Plymouth. Access to an Urgent Treatment Centre away from the main Emergency Department, in a purpose-built unit where we can see all ages with minor illness and injury will impact our care delivered to patients positively. This will build on the success of the service we provide at the Cumberland centre.”
An Urgent Treatment Centre should be visited when you have an injury which is not life-threatening, but still requires urgent treatment. Examples of problems that can be treated are cuts, small burns or scalds, bites and stings, sprains and certain fractures, minor head injuries, infected wounds and foreign bodies in eyes.
The building will accommodate the Urgent Treatment Centre and Fracture Clinic along with support offices and improved staff facilities. It will be?located in?the Northwest quadrant of the hospital site, opposite Costa Coffee and the planned new Boots Outpatients Pharmacy .
Having an Urgent Treatment Centre on site will allow us to treat patients who require urgent treatment that is not life threatening more quickly. This will further allow the development of the new Urgent and Emergency Care Centre ?(UEC), a purpose-built facility creating space to care for the sickest patients which will be located to the left of the main hospital entrance. Enabling work has begun on the UEC which will prepare the site for main construction activity.
Trainee independent prescriber supervision for community pharmacists in Devon – A novel approach
A pharmacy pilot in Devon recently featured in the winter 2024 national pharmaceutical journal, PM Healthcare Journal .
There is a national drive to expand community pharmacist service provision to include a wider range of clinical services and independent prescribing.
The Devon Teach and Treat Pilot aims to support community pharmacists from across the county to achieve their independent prescribing qualification by providing access to suitable supervisors and clinical environment.
The project has been led by Vicky Webb, Independent Prescribing Clinical Lead at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust.
The aims of the project are:
For community pharmacists who want to do their independent prescribing course, one of the biggest obstacles they face is identifying a Designated Prescribing Practitioner (DPP) and clinical environment to facilitate the course requirement of supervised practice learning (90 hours).
Traditionally a GP from the local surgery is the first source of supervision to be considered and more recently, suitably experienced independent prescribers can act as a DPP. The best source of DPPs for community pharmacist trainee independent prescribers is from the local PCN as these are the professional relationships that must continue beyond the 6-month course. Devon practices were invited to take part in the pilot and host a community pharmacist for their 90 hours of supervised practice learning (funding was made available to practices).
Following recent research in the South West, it was clear that there is a significant need to expand supervision capacity for pharmacists. NHS Health Education England offered funding to the integrated care boards (ICB) in the South West to pilot ‘Teach and Treat’ clinics as a way of creating supervision capacity for community pharmacists. The clinics support several pharmacists training to be prescribers by providing a DPP and suitable clinical environment.
In May 2023, in collaboration with Devon ICB, the pharmacy department at University Hospitals Plymouth (UHP) recruited Vicky Webb, a nurse advanced clinical practitioner (ACP), into the role of independent prescribing clinical lead (IPCL) to establish and operationalise a model that would facilitate the supervision of multiple trainee prescribers.
Vicky spent time in community pharmacies, GP surgeries, specialist community teams, local pharmaceutical committee (LPC) and urgent treatment centres to understand more about the particular challenges faced by community pharmacists and gauge where potential supervision could be accessed.
Ten local community pharmacists were selected to apply for their prescribing qualification with the support of Devon Teach & Treat from September 2023.
Kandarp Thakkar, Chief Pharmacist University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, said: “This pilot is an important strategic initiative. The doors at the front of our hospitals are heaving and there is a real opportunity for community pharmacy to help reduce this demand. However, in the short term, as hospitals have the bigger education and training infrastructure, we need to support our community pharmacy colleagues in developing the skills they need to ultimately help us.”
From September 2026, all newly qualified pharmacists will be independent prescribers (IP) at the point of registration. This will give patients an additional point of access to experienced and skilled clinicians who will be able to consult, assess, diagnose, and prescribe within a specific remit. In turn, this should assist with some of the workload experienced by general practice and urgent care.
Professor Sir Stephen Powis Visit
We were delighted to welcome Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England National Medical Director, Dr David Hargroves (National Clinical Director for Stroke Medicine), Dr Nigel Acheson (Devon ICB Medical Director), Dr Michael Marsh and members of the South West Regional Medical Directorate to visit UHP today to look at the Stroke Care we provide for the people of Plymouth and the Peninsula in the first of a number of national visits.
Our Mechanical Thrombectomy service treats over 200 patients a year currently which is one of the most effective types of treatment for certain types of strokes. We hope to increase the level of service offered over the coming year across the peninsula to treat even more patients and it was a pleasure to present those plans today to show how UHP and peninsula colleagues continue to innovate to bring new and novel services to our patients.
Professor Powis said: “It was great to see the innovation and robust planning the peninsula and UHP teams have done to increase the availability of this service to more people across the peninsula.”
Promise trial supporting liver disease patients launched at UHP
Around 300 people, including patients from University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (UHP), will be part of the new trial funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and?UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
According to the British Liver Trust, who are collaborating on the trial, liver disease is the third biggest cause of death in working-age people with around 40 deaths occurring each day.
Patients in the advanced stages of chronic liver disease (CLD), known as cirrhosis, which is a hardening and scarring of the liver, can be very susceptible to infections. Unfortunately, some antibiotics are now becoming ineffective at treating these infections, so alternative methods need to be investigated.
Finding new treatments is important as CLD is the only major chronic disease that is on the rise in the UK. The Promise study has been created to trial the effectiveness of a “poo transplant” for patients experiencing cirrhosis. The trial will take place at 16 hospitals across the UK, including at UHP, who started recruiting to the project in early February.
Patients with cirrhosis have a higher-than-normal number of “bad” bacteria in their bowel which can disrupt their immune system, leading to increased risk of infection. It is hoped that these patients could benefit from having these bacteria replaced by bacteria from a healthy person via a poo transplant, known as a faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT).
The Promise trial will involve one group of patients taking a dosage of capsules containing the donor specimen every three months for two years, and another group receiving a placebo. Researchers will then measure the time it takes for patients in each group to develop an infection resulting in hospital admission and compare the results to investigate the impact FMT can have on CLD patients. The study will also investigate the impact having a poo transplant could have on cirrhosis and whether it can benefit the liver and immune system.
Talking about the trial, Professor Matthew Cramp, Consultant Hepatologist at the South West Liver Unit at UHP, said: “The South West Liver Unit is excited to be part of this study, which aims to change the gut microbiome using a type of poo transplant.
“We see many patients with liver disease who develop serious infections and this study offers hope for our patients with cirrhosis who currently have very few treatment options.”
If you are a patient at UHP who would like to know more about the Promise study, or other research opportunities UHP, ask your health care team. Or if you are interested in taking part in a research study with UHP, you can use the link to see which studies we are currently running that could be of benefit to you: https://bepartofresearch.nihr.ac.uk/