The PJ Pod

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 requir

As has become tradition, The PJ Pod’s final episode of the year looks back over some of the most significant stories in pharmacy in the past 12 months, before members of The PJ editorial team make their predictions for 2025. Big stories of 2024 have included the launch of Pharmacy First in England, a persistent ethnicity pay gap in the profession, the emerging threat of nitazine

In September 2024, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) put forward proposals to take on royal college status, pending a vote of the membership in early 2025. The RPS said the proposals were in response to strategic ambitions amid rapid changes in the pharmacy profession, and followed an independent, 18-month-long review of its constitution and governance, led by consultancy fir

High levels of patient safety incidents related to time-critical medicines (TCMs) — medicines that need to be given or taken at a specific time — have persisted for decades. In 2022/2023 alone, there were 17 deaths recorded as a result of medicine dose delivery being delayed or omitted entirely. Solutions, such as using e-prescribing systems, has been successful on a local lev

Green social prescribing, which can include activities such as community gardening, mindful walks and conservation volunteering — as well as 'blue' activities like kayaking and wild swimming — is gaining traction. Results from a government-backed green social prescribing programme were published in September 2024, showing that it had a positive impact on measures of wellbeing

Over the last decade, the development of targeted therapies has significantly changed the way that chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) is treated. Survival and life expectancy has improved, and this patient cohort is living and receiving treatment for longer than ever before. These changes have meant that the involvement of pharmacists across all sectors in the treatment of CLL pat

In this learning episode, we look at the latest developments in migraine treatment where new classes of drugs are starting to provide additional options for patients and prescribers. For links to relevant articles and further resources on migraine treatment visit the PJ website. Many thanks to Kerri Spalding, a migraine patient, advocate and fundraiser, and Mathew Garrod, lead

Drones are already being used to transport medicines in several countries around the world, including the United States, Australia, Switzerland and Rwanda, but what’s the story in the UK, where the road infrastructure is good and the airspace is small and busy? Is there a need for medical drone deliveries? Are they safe and would they be a viable option for the NHS? These are qu

In this episode of The PJ Pod, we look at how pharmacists can become more involved in research, by hearing directly from those who have done just that. We speak to the members of our OPERA 2024 shortlist, and winner, as well as Parastou Donyai, chief scientist at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, to explore some of the practical steps that individuals can take when starting out, wh

The ‘NHS mental health implementation plan 2019/20–2023/24’, published by NHS England in July 2019, identified a need for “new and integrated models of primary and community mental health care” to support 370,000 adults and older adults with severe mental illness (SMI). With many of these patients on psychotropic medication, such as clozapine, lithium, valproate and anti