future of critical care

[bleepholder]

hey guys,

A little help...i've been asked about the opportunities and challenges facing a critical care pharmacist over the next 5 years in the NHS...just wanted your input if possible

Some ideas i came up with were:-

drug budgets
educating nurses and nurse practitioners
new drugs becoming available and falling in line with national guidance (NICE etc)
guidelines and protocols being written up
increasing age of the population and the general demographics of the population
move to electronic prescribing
off license drugs
antibiotic prescribing

Does anyone have any extra ideas

many thanks in anticipation!

[laurabuk]

Hi Bleepholder!

I spent a one day of one of my placements this summer with a critical care pharmacist. One of the things that she was involved with was the pandemic planning across the hospital - including all the disaster plans such as how long stocks of drugs and fluids would last, how much to order in anticipation of a pandemic, and how drugs and things would be allocated to various parts of the hospital if they ended up with massive shortages due to manufacturing slowing down etc.

It was in August after the "first wave" of swine flu when the government was still predicting a "second wave". Who knows if pandemic-level flu will come back but this could be something a critical care pharmacist would have to face??

Laura