Our new PJ Pod series — Pharmacy Inside Jobs — is aimed to inspire you to take the next step in your career. Whether you are a pharmacy student or a seasoned pharmacy professional, our goal is to provide insights into the increasingly diverse roles that exist within the profession.
In each episode, we will be joined by a guest to explore their career journey so far, with a focus on their current role, and the opportunities, challenges and rewards that it brings. We will also find out what skills are needed to succeed in their role and how you could follow in their footsteps.
In this episode of Pharmacy Inside Jobs, senior features editor Dawn Connelly talks to prison pharmacist Kaniksha Aggarwal.
Aggarwal has recently founded Prison Pharmacy Connect, a platform dedicated to raising awareness of prison pharmacy professionals and sharing the lived experiences of people who have been on the receiving end of pharmacy services while in prison. She completed the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer’s Clinical Fellowship scheme in 2024 and is currently employed by Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust as an advanced pharmacist specialist working in a men’s prison.
This episode was produced by Geoff Marsh, with editorial support from executive editor Carolyn Wickware.
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32:25
First UK joint asthma guidance: what does it mean for practice?
On the 27th of November 2024, the British Thoracic Society (BTS), National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) released joint guidance on ‘Asthma: diagnosis, monitoring and chronic asthma management’. The guidance is the first collaboration of its kind between the organisations.  
The guideline makes a number of recommendations, including a strong recommendation to stop prescribing Short-acting beta-2 agonist (SABA) inhalers without inhaled corticosteroids. While there has been a move towards this treatment regimen in recent years, this is the first recommendation of its kind in national guidance.
In this episode of The PJ Pod, Caitlin Killen, clinical editor, talks to Toby Capstick, Consultant pharmacist in respiratory medicine at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, to learn more about the guidance and its implications for practice.
Many thanks to Toby for his expertise.
This episode was produced by Geoff Marsh.
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18:02
Spotlight: MPharm ethnicity awarding gap rewidens
The Pharmaceutical Journal’s third analysis of MPharm awarding gap data has revealed that the percentage point difference between the proportion of white students and minority ethnic students awarded a first or 2:1 degree increased to 11 percentage points in 2021/2022 and 2022/2023.
This comes after previous analyses of the data from before and during the pandemic indicated a narrowing of the gap from 12 percentage points in 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 to 8 percentage points in 2019/2020 and 2020/2021.
In this Spotlight episode of The PJ Pod, senior features editor Dawn Connelly shares what she learned from experts about why the gap has rewidened and what pharmacy schools and other pharmacy bodies, including the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, are doing to help produce more equitable MPharm outcomes.
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10:25
Disagreement and conflict in teams
Disagreement and conflict are unavoidable realities common to all working environments, but for pharmacists and pharmacy teams faced with potentially long hours, stretched resources, increasing complexity and high expectations, it does not take much for problems to escalate. This can put patient safety at risk and contributes to stress and burnout.
In this learning episode of The PJ Pod, we explore some of the common underlying causes of conflict in the pharmacy workplace and consider how individuals, whether managers or not, can take practical steps to avoid or resolve conflict situations.
By the end of the episode, you will be able to:
- Understand how pharmacy working conditions and external factors can make conflict within teams more likely;
- Spot early warning signs of conflict in the workplace;
- Use simple strategies to address conflict early and avoid problems growing;
- Understand the importance of a safe, welcoming work environment and what you can do to promote one.
Many thanks to Harpreet Chana, pharmacist and founder of the Mental Wealth Academy, and Melissa Cochrane, well-being director at Pharmacist Support, for their expert contributions.
This programme is presented by Katherine Sole, editor, research and learning, and was produced by Geoff Marsh.
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24:39
Spotlight: Palliative care access
Despite national incentives and locally commissioned services designed to improve availability of palliative care medicines from community pharmacies, access is not evenly distributed across the country.
This problem is only set to get worse with demand for these services expected to increase in the coming decades. Marie Curie has estimated that, if the proportion of people requiring palliative care remains the same, the number of people with palliative care needs in the UK would increase by more than 147,000 between 2023 and 2048 — a rise of 25%.
In this episode of The PJ Pod, executive editor Carolyn Wickware and senior features editor Dawn Connelly discuss what the NHS is doing at local and national levels to ensure patients can maintain their quality of life for as long as possible.
Keeping you one step ahead of developments in pharmacy, medicines and the pharmaceutical sciences. Brought to you by the team behind The Pharmaceutical Journal.
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