North Wales Medicines Research Symposium 4th September 2014
Dyfrig Hughes hosted the second NWMRS at the Kinmel Hotel, Abergele, attended by 50 delegates from the NHS and Universities in Wales. The posters and presentations reflected the broad range of pharmaceutical research activities across North Wales.
Professor Phil Routledge OBE, Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Head of the Department of Pharmacology, Therapeutics and Toxicology at Cardiff University was the keynote speaker. His presentation ‘From science to systems in optimising the use of medicines’ described the evolution of the clinical use of warfarin and the development of individual patient assessment in use today.
Professor Robert Rogers from the School of Psychology at Bangor University presented work on how serotonin activity influences cognitions about close intimate partnerships. From CHEME, Dr Catrin Plumpton presented an economic analysis of the potential cost-savings through use of generic substitution in epilepsy, and Professor Dyfrig Hughes described the ‘FolATED’ study, a placebo-controlled randomised controlled trial of folate augmentation of antidepressant therapy.
From Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, Uttam Chouhan, Principal Pharmacist at Glan Clwyd Hospital described work comparing the effect of implementing pulmonary embolism guidelines incorporating rivaroxaban in place of warfarin.
The evening was rounded off by Joanne Kember, Member of the Faculty of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society who discussed her journey to Faculty membership in ‘Faculty and the 3 Rs: Research, RPS and Reality’.
The posters covered a wide range of topics from academic and hospital contributors. Subjects included the transfer of information to primary care on medication changes at discharge, the prescribing of hypnotics for insomnia in patients on a psychiatric unit, and the prescribing of atypical antipsychotic injections at mental health resource centres. Others were a systematic review of the economic evaluation of pharmacogenetic testing to prevent adverse drug reactions, a project to improve initial prescribing of antibiotics for Clostridium difficile, and feedback from medical undergraduates on joint teaching by a pharmacist and medical registrar on an acute medical admissions ward.
The event was sponsored by Bangor University, Gogledd Cymru North Local Practice Forum of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.