An authentic yet lighthearted take on the world of medicines and healthcare in the UK

Shared Decision Making (SDM) Episodes

June 7, 2024

6.9 Ann-Marie Goacher. The Eyes: A Window to Our Health

Pain in the eye? It is a red-flag all healthcare professionals are trained to be aware of. But when spotted, who deals with it? We are joined by Specialist Head and Neck Pharmacist Ann Marie Goacher.

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May 24, 2024

6.8 Maricarmen Climént - Risky Business - How to communicate uncertainty

How do you explain the risks and benefits of a medicine when you yourself don’t really know? We chat to Maricarmen Climént about risk communication and how we best help patients to make better choices in the face of uncertainty?

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April 12, 2024

6.6 Dr Catherine Labinjoh - Realistic Medicine & The Drug Portal to The World…

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.

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March 22, 2024

6.5 Alison Tennant - Won’t someone think of the children?

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.

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March 8, 2024

6.4 Professor Tony Avery OBE - The Problem with Prescribing?

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.

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Dec. 8, 2023

The Aural Apothecary Almanac 2023 - Artificial Intelligence, the Year of Community Pharmacy and the impact of loss

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.

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July 21, 2023

5.10 Professor Neal Maskrey - Rebalancing Medicine

A retired GP and former director of the National Prescribing Centre Professor Neal Maskrey was a pivotal figure in the in the way clinical evidence is presented and used in practice, and an inspiration to many.

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June 8, 2023

5.8 - Paul Woodgate - The Patient Voice and the lived reality of Polypharmacy

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.

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April 6, 2023

Episode 5.4 - Rachel Power - Communication, Communication, Communication.

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. We discuss the concerns that patients are bringing to the Patients Association which include medicines information and communication. Are patient information leaflets best used as wallpaper..?

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March 10, 2023

Aural Apothecary Archives: Tracy Brown – What is Analgesic Stewardship

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. Tracy Brown – an award winning pharmacist running primary care pain clinics.

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Feb. 24, 2023

Episode 5.3 - Professor Alf Collins: No decision about me, without me

The Godfather of Shared Decision Making (SDM) has spoken, so listen up! 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

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Feb. 17, 2023

Episode 2.1 Replay 2023 : Jonathan Underhill, Shared Decision Making , NICE and POOs not DOOs

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.

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Feb. 3, 2023

5.2 - Deborah Duval. Let me live! Life as a transplant recipient

What is more important? Quality of life or length of life? A question that our guest, Deborah Duval, faces on a daily basis and 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

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Jan. 20, 2023

5.1 - Graham Prestwich - The Patient as a Project Manager

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 to helping people understand and use their medicines through the fantastic website www.meandmymedicines.org.uk

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Aug. 12, 2022

Episode 4.7 - Professor Debi Bhattacharya. System Level Change in The Danger Zone.

We chat to Professor Debi Bhattacharya - Professor of Behavioural Medicine at the University of Leicester and a primary care pharmacist. Debi led on research into a behaviour change toolkit designed to reduce opioid prescribing and is now actively involved in a programme designed to implement this at a systems level.

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