Posted on: 19 October 2021
On Wednesday 13 October, over 50 staff in the Pharmacy Department convened virtually to review their achievements, consider their future direction and most importantly connect.
The celebrations encompassed this year's World Pharmacists Day (September 25) and Pharmacy Technician Day (October 19). It also served as an opportunity to relaunch the CNWL pharmacy motto: Creating Confidence in Medicines.
“I had the pleasure of speaking at the first ever CNWL Pharmacy Celebration Day,” said Dr Cornelius Kelly, CNWL’s Medical Director. “There were pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, pharmacy assistants and support staff from all over CNWL in attendance. Teams from Milton Keynes, Surrey and London were all represented.
“It was a great opportunity to thank our pharmacy colleagues and to share the excellent feedback on their impact across CNWL, particularly in the past 18 months through their work in the vaccination hubs, EPMA and the various other transformation projects across the Trust.
“There is still a lot more our pharmacy colleagues have to offer and we acknowledge how lucky we are to have such a talented and skilled group of staff – go Pharmacy!”
Anshu Rayan, CNWL’s Deputy Chief Pharmacist who organised the event, alongside Lorraine Holl, said: “it was a fantastic opportunity to reflect on the past year, and to thank each other for all the hard work everything we do on a daily basis. In my 21 years at CNWL, I have never felt more proud to be part of such a fabulous department.”
The event included a quiz and the first ever CNWL Pharmacy Awards, which were judged by multidisciplinary colleagues and a service user. The award winners across the seven categories were:
Compassion: Lindsey Fletcher – HMP Woodhill
Respect: Ferdinand Pestano – St Charles
Empowerment: Georgina Ell – Brent
Partnership: Jatinder Heer – Covid Vaccination: NWL Phase 3, CP House
Inspirational Leader: Reg Akaruese – Campbell Centre, Milton Keynes
Behind the Scenes: Sally Hunter – Harrow
Excellence in Innovation: Meenal Patel – Hillingdon
A big thank you to all who made this day a success, in particular the judges, our Pharmacy Administrators Lorraine Holl, Chris Dandolas and Abena Dankwah, our quiz master, Marta Pitarch and our speakers, Professor Steven Bazire, Dr Con Kelly and Tf Chan.
The Pharmacy Operations Team wrote a special poem for the occasion, which you can read here.
