The Milton Keynes University Hospital Trust will be opening a brand-new outpatient pharmacy on 21st April.
The new pharmacy will be located in the link between the hospital's main entrance and Outpatients department.
It will initially dispense outpatient prescriptions and FP10s from the hospital (FP10(HP))s, reducing the pressure on the hospital's main in-patient facility.
Following an outpatient appointment, patients will then be able to take their prescription, which will be clinically screened by one of the hospital trust's trained pharmacists.
The trained pharmacists will then be able to provide further guidance and advice on their medications before dispensing the necessary medicines.
The new facility has been designed to improve patient experience by reducing waiting times, improve patient accessibility to their medicines and deliver specialist advice to patients about their ongoing medication management.
The hospital's outpatient pharmacy will be open from 9am – 5.30pm, Monday to Friday and will be staffed by a team of pharmacists and pharmacy technical staff.
Although initially the pharmacy will only be able to dispense outpatient prescriptions, the team have several plans to expand the service over the next few months. Some of these plans include:
- The sale of over-the-counter (OTC) medicines e.g. paracetamol, ibuprofen and advice on management of minor illnesses
- Healthy lifestyle promotion initiatives for staff to support the Trust’s health & wellbeing programme.
Patients who have FP10 prescriptions issued by a GP will still have to take them to a community pharmacy.
