TEAMWORK – both human and robot – has been the key to ensuring patients across Glasgow receive vital medicines during the pandemic.
The city is home to the largest medicine dispensing robot in the UK and its efforts, alongside that of a team of people, have ensured NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has been able to cope with everything from day-to-day medicine supplies to the Covid-19 vaccination roll-out.
Staff at the Pharmacy Distribution Centre have been among the unsung heroes of the covid crisis, processing around 100,000 pharmacy items each week.
With the Covid-19 vaccination roll-out, that effort has expanded to include sending some 72,000 vaccines to clinics every week too.
And it means the team has supplied more than 2.1 million vaccine doses so far.
Claire Aliyar, Chief Pharmacy Technician at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, said: “The team have been working really hard throughout the pandemic – especially at the very beginning, because it just happened so fast.
"We tried to get as much stock in as we possibly could before it all started and we did manage to get some, but it was going out as soon as it came in."
Their effort is supported by some Amazon-style technology and a huge robot storage and distribution machine which automates around 80% of the pharmacy work.
Work to distribute the vaccines remains a manual endeavour, with the team employed on that working in an adjacent site.
The team provides medicines for hospital wards, other acute settings, care homes and prison medical units.
Orders are placed online and the entire high-tech production line works 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The team’s aim is to ensure that every patient gets the medicine they need, when they need it – with the robot dispensing medicines from amoxicillin to paracetamol and everything in between.
Medicines are packed into boxes which are in turn packed into vans and transferred to the acute sites.
When covid arrived, the demand ramped up.
Claire added: “The team were fabulous, they increased their working hours and came in for extra days.
"They just rolled up their sleeves, all with the same purpose – to get medicines out for the patients at their time of need.”
The team were then asked to set up a vaccine distribution centre from scratch.
Claire said: “We did a small proportion of NHSGGC’s vaccine programme before, but nothing on the scale we needed.
"It became huge, a massive part of our workload and we took the new warehouse space from scratch and now we’re supplying more than 70,000 doses each week – more than 2.1 million doses to date.”
Ahead of the Omicron wave, the team worked to anticipate demand so that patients were cared for – but also worked to look after each other during what has been a trying time.
Claire said: “The more prepared we are, the less pressure there is in the wards and departments.
“It’s been a huge success.
"I’ve never worked with a team like this – we all look out for each other whether we’re having a good or a bad day.
"We’ll always be here for each other and the patients, making sure their medication gets to them when they need it.”
Gail Caldwell, Director of Pharmacy for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, added: “Medicines are the most common healthcare intervention and never has this been more important than during the pandemic.
"The pharmacy team at the Pharmacy Distribution Centre have worked tirelessly throughout to ensure NHSGGC had adequate supplies of critical medicines."
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