Karebor Ngwerume, a community pharmacist working in Hull, showcased the novel; research she had been part of that looked into educating pharmacy support staff in OTC sales. This gave the audience a fascinating insight into how much one can find about drugs that might not have been trialled as much as established POMs. The presentation was also a reminder that anyone can undertake research — not just full-time academics.
The professor of primary care pharmacy at Queen’s University Belfast, Carmel Hughes, built on a presentation she had given earlier on in the day, focussing on improved care for dementia patients. Having established herself in this field, her knowledge of the subject was vast indeed.
Christine Bond, from The University of Aberdeen, finished the session by taking the audience through the journey of community-based smoking cessation services and asked why, even now, is it taking so long to re-establish community pharmacy as the number one NHS provider of NRT in the UK.
