A SOMERSET NHS Foundation Trust pharmacy technician has won a national award for the work she’s done to help reduce falls across Mendip.

Vicky Bull, who’s also the trust’s community rehabilitation manager for the Mendip area, found out she was a winner at a coveted awards ceremony held in Nottingham in late summer.

The awards celebrate and acknowledge successful individuals, teams and projects within the pharmacy technician profession.

Vicky has been a pharmacy technician for over 30 years, and has experience working in community pharmacy, GP practices, a medicines management team and the trust’s community rehabilitation service.

She was nominated for an award by Amanda Jones, the trust’s community rehabilitation service’s pharmacy technician, who also works in the Mendip area.

Vicky says she’s proud that the achievements of both herself, and her team, have been recognised, after they worked hard to successfully introduce a falls and frailty clinic, based out of Frome Community Hospital, which she says is making a huge difference to the lives of patients in Mendip.

“The clinic idea first came about when I was contacted three years ago by Dr Helen Milbourn, a geriatrician from the Royal United Hospitals Bath,” Vicky said.

“Dr Milbourn had moved from London, and wanted to bring to Somerset the same type of multidisciplinary falls and frailty clinic that she’d run in the capital.

“As part of this, we wanted a physiotherapist in the clinic for the physical assessments, a pharmacy technician or pharmacist for the medication reviews, and a nurse for the physical observations and blood pressure checks, with Dr Milbourn then reviewing the overall care.

“When we initially started the clinic, our medicines management team agreed to provide a pharmacist one day a month. The Frome Hospital clinic has grown so much over the last three years as we tend to see about 10 patients in a morning, with Dr Milbourn also bringing a registrar doctor along with her.

“It’s a bit of a ‘one stop shop’ really, as we have colleagues from primary care, secondary care and community services all working together to assess a patient’s goals, as well as the challenges they’re facing.

“At the same time, we also look at the quality of life for each individual patient who is at risk or has experienced a fall, considering any other conditions they might have that they aren’t currently on medication for, such as bone health. Dr Milbourn will refer on for further tests and assessments if identified in clinic.

“By providing this level of personalised care we’ve been able to increase the number of patients we can see on a caseload.

“If we feel that the patient needs a home environment assessment, or even equipment such as walking aids, then we can offer this as part of the same clinic.

“We were also able to spread the learning from our first clinic in Frome, as we opened a similar service at Shepton Mallet Community Hospital, with another geriatrician from RUH Bath, and a pharmacist from the primary care network involved – a great example of working together for the benefit of our patients.”