Who we are
The following teams sit under Medicines Management:
Community Hospital Pharmacy Team
The Community Hospital Pharmacy team at KCHFT consisting of Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians pride themselves with providing a specialist medicines optimisation support and guidance to patients, carers, healthcare and social care staff employed by KCHFT and other organisations through collaborative partnership working.
Working with the wider MDTs the Community Hospital Pharmacy team adopt a patient centred approach to medicines optimisation with shared decision making to ensure a person is taking and continues to take their medicines as intended.
This is demonstrated from the moment the patient enters the organisation and throughout their Community Hospital admission and to discharge:
- by ensuring that medicines are safe and available when required and disposed of safely when not needed
- through ensuring accuracy of medications prescribed by Medicines Reconciliation and patient centred Medicines Management Assessments
- by regular screening, review and communications with the wider MDT
- by ensuring that medicines are optimised for individual patients by undertaking clinical medication reviews to proactively manage patients with complex polypharmacy
- through One Stop dispensing processes, use of Patient’s Own Drugs (PODs) and Self Administration Medication (SAM) schemes which empower patients to manage their own medications whilst in Hospital
- through education to prevent avoidable future admissions and keep them safe in their own normal place of residence
- through safe discharge to ensure that patients have and continue to take the correct medication and changes are safely communicated including through collaborative working across healthcare sectors to transfer this information and ultimately keep patients safe.
Integrated Pharmacy Team (IPT)
The Integrated Pharmacy Team aims to enable patients who have been identified as having difficulty managing their medicines to:
- improve health outcomes
- take medication safely and effectively (improving concordance)
- reduce potential harm from medication.
The team works within the east Kent health and care partnership area; as this is a new service it will be rolled out in stages across the locality. The team will be taking their
The referrals we accept within the hub are for patients who are frail, complex or at high risk of medication related harm. For example, patients using
Pharmacy Education, Training and Development
We provide:
- support for NHS England commissioned pharmacy training programmes
- education and development and clinical support for the pharmacy team
- medicines training and support for other healthcare professionals and teams within KCHFT including Clinical Academy Apprentices
- medicines training for social care providers as commissioned.
Quality and Governance
The Quality and Governance team are responsible for a wide range of pharmacy services, including management of Controlled Drugs (CDs), governance of prescribers, supply contract monitoring, prescription security and management of the SafeMed medicines incident system.
The service assists the Controlled Drugs Accountable Officer in ensuring that all CDs are ordered, stored, administered and disposed of according to the Trust’s CD Policy, as well as supplying KCHFT wards and services with sundry items and prescription stationary.
Sexual Health and HIV (East Kent, Medway and East Sussex)
The Sexual Health Pharmacy Team aims to provide support to the growing local needs of the Integrated Sexual Health and HIV Services making sure the clinical, cost-effective and safe use of medicines in relation to treatments used in these specialties.
The team of pharmacists, registered pharmacy technicians and pharmacy support workers:
- work alongside other healthcare professionals to make sure patients with specialised pharmaceutical needs are appropriately managed
- provide HIV medication review and adherence clinics to support patients with often complex and difficult regimens
- promote the safe and effective use of HIV medication
- manage and co-ordinates the HIV homecare delivery service, including for local HMP
- govern policies, SOPs, guidelines, audits, alerts, recalls and incidents
- provide staff training and regular medicines updates.
- Procurement and medicine supplies, medicines queries and development of PGDs for Integrated Sexual Health.
Specialist Services
The Specialist Services Team provide pharmaceutical and medicine optimisation support to the following services:
- Bladder and Bowel
- Cardiac
- Community Nursing
- Community Orthopaedics
- Children and Young People (including Immunisation and Community Paediatric Support)
- Dental
- Dietetics
- Epilepsy
- Falls
- Health Visitors
- HEN Home Enteral Nutrition
- IV Therapy
- Learning Disability
- Lymphoedema
- Out Patient Departments
- One YOU Smoke Free
- Podiatry
- Respiratory
- Speech and Language Therapy
- Tuberculosis
- UTC / MIU.
This includes standard operating procedures (SOPs) and guidelines, risk assessments, stock review, medicine audits, medicine enquiries, promotion and training of the safe and effective use of medicine.
The team are responsible for the trust’s Patient Group Directions and medicine protocols which includes processes for new PGD’s, updates and reviews and also for the organisation’s Emergency Response National PGD and protocols.
Clinical support and education to special schools, short break service and ADHD clinics is carried out in collaboration with local authorities, particularly social care and education, to provide medicine support and deliver a range of services to vulnerable children and their families.
The Self Administration of Medicines (SAM) Team
The SAM team are a small team of five Pharmacy Technicians who support KCHFT Community Nurses to manage their caseload. They do this by:
- educating patients in their own homes to self-administer their medication, for example, insulin, low molecular weight heparin, eye drops, this enables people to remain independent
- educating and training care home staff to enable them to administer insulin to their residents.
- supporting patients with diabetes in their own homes by providing medication reviews and checks of their monitoring devices.
- undertaking competency assessments for community nurses/ healthcare assistants for insulin administration
- administering the repeat vitamin b12 injections to housebound patients.
Virtual Ward Pharmacy Team
The Virtual Ward Pharmacy Team support the Urgent Care/Frailty Home Treatment services to provide hospital level care in peoples’ own homes for those with an acute exacerbation of a frailty-related condition. The pharmacists are part of the multidisciplinary team providing expert clinical support and advice on the safe and effective use of medicines. The team are involved in the entire virtual ward care episode, including medicines reconciliation, medication review, prescribing or deprescribing, and communication at discharge. The team also contribute to a number of underpinning areas such as medicine supply and stock management, antimicrobial stewardship, and education for patients, carers and staff.
February 2025
South Kent Coast
March 2025
South Kent Coast
August 2025
Thanet
September 2024
Canterbury and Coastal
June 2024
Ashford
April 2024
Canterbury
February 2024
Canterbury/Coastal
May 2023
Canterbury & Coastal
May 2023
Canterbury & Coastal
May 2023
Canterbury & Coastal
April 2023
Canterbury & Coastal
April 2023
Ashford
April 2023
Ashford
March 2023
Canterbury & Coastal
March 2023
Canterbury & Coastal
April 2022
Ashford
April 2022
Ashford
April 2022
Canterbury
March 2022
Thanet