Two senior pharmacy technicians at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT) have been presented with the ‘excellence in pharmacy education and development award’.

Jane Shanahan and Alison Marshall, from ELHT’s Specialist Medicines Optimisation Care Home (SMOCH), team were presented with the award at the APTUK Pharmacy Technician Awards.

They were awarded for their work around the anticholinergic burden scores, the cumulative effect on an individual of taking one or more medications with a type of medication called Anticholinergics.

They then shared what they learned with other healthcare professionals.

This work involves supporting nurses and carers, by getting the best from medicines and consequently improving safety and quality of life of these older residents by medicines optimisation.

Together over the last 12 months both Jane and Alison have networked, extensively studied research papers, presented anticholinergic awareness sessions to multiple healthcare professionals of all levels and all disciplines, as well being invited to present at University of Central Lancashire and the British Geriatrics Society conference.

Their work has also been nationally recognised and expanded to clinical pathways where their work is now embedded across both primary and secondary care in East Lancashire and has helped improve the quality of life of East Lancashire care home residents.

 Jane said: “We are delighted and honoured to win this prestigious award. We hope that the award will allow us to connect with more healthcare professional colleagues both nationally and internationally.

We want to continue to support both healthcare professionals and patients to have an awareness about anticholinergic medicines and the need for regular review and the implementation of clinical pathways to support this.”