Pharmacy Department - All Sites

Lindsay Harper - NCA Group Director of Pharmacy
E-mail : lindsay.harper@nca.nhs.uk
Tel: 0161 206 5219
PA: Gill Crawshaw. Tel: 0161 206 1050

The pharmacy staff across the NCA work to ensure that all patients receive timely, safe and accurate medication whilst being cared for across our hospitals.

Pharmacy staff are present to support you in your medication needs from when you arrive via our A&E departments or elective pathways to when you are discharged home.

From taking your medication history, to ensuring all the medications prescribed for you during your admission are safe and effective, pharmacy staff are an integral part of the clinical team looking after you.

Our daycase units at Salford and Rochdale provide treatments and investigations for patients under the care of multiple specialities including rheumatology, haematology, gastroenterology and endocrinology.

The pharmacy team provide timely supply of planned medications such as biologics, iron infusions and chemotherapy, and any supportive medicine for the patient to take home. We also work with the clinical teams to manage these patients on complex medicines as part of the MDT. This allows us to provide an effective service to patients with rapid turnaround times.

Each of the trusts hospital sites offers outpatient dispensing of hospital prescriptions. At Royal Oldham and Salford Royal, we are partnered by Lloyds Pharmacy which provides our outpatient dispensing services.

Medicine Information support for Healthcare Professionals

The Medicines Information team at the Northern Care Alliance provides a full range of advice relating to medicines, to healthcare professionals. Using an extensive range of sources, specially trained pharmacists answer medicine queries on a range of areas

The service is available 9am-5pm Monday – Friday and can be accessed via phone or email:

Royal Oldham Hospital, Fairfield General Hospital and Rochdale Infirmary:  0161 627 8968

Salford Royal Hospital: 0161 206 5223

Email: medicines.information@nca.nhs.uk - Royal Oldham, Fairfield General and Rochdale Infirmary

Email: druginfo@nca.nhs.uk – Salford Royal

Medicine Information Helpline for Patients

We also provide a Medicines Information helpline service which is offered to  patients discharged from Fairfield General Hospital, Rochdale Infirmary and Royal Oldham Hospital, and patients who have received care from these hospital steis.

Our helpline service operates from 9am-5pm Monday – Friday and is available via telephone on 0161 627 8968.

For any other enquiries about medicines, please contact your GP or local pharmacy. If you have an urgent enquiry, please call 111.

You can also find general information about your medicines by visiting freely accessible websites such as:

Medicines A-Z - https://www.nhs.uk/medicines/

Patient UK - https://patient.info/medicine

The Aseptics Services Units at Salford Royal and Royal Oldham Hospitals prepare injectable medicines for use in the Trust for named patients.  Products made include cytotoxic chemotherapy, antibiotics, clinical trials and parenteral nutrition (intravenous feeding) for adults and babies. 

The products are made in controlled cleanrooms and all staff undergo specialised training to be able to work in Aseptics Services.  All products are made to national quality standards through manufacturing practice guidelines.  The units are inspected regularly by NHS Quality Assurance North West.  The unit at Salford Royal also has a Manufacturing Specials (MS) Licence from the MHRA which allows for batch manufacture and supply to departments including Critical Care and Accident and Emergency to enable quick access to some critical medications.  The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) inspects the site regularly to ensure compliance with the terms of the MS Licence.

Key Contacts Aseptics

The Pharmacy homecare teams across the NCA help deliver a range of medications directly to the comfort of the patient’s home. By working closely with the clinical teams and external providers, the teams can ensure the patients receive exceptional treatment without needing to attend the trusts hospital sites.

The pharmacy clinical trials team work together with trust colleagues and external sponsors to support a range of commercial and non-commercial studies involving investigational medicinal products. These trials are evaluating innovative new treatments across a broad range of diseases and give our patients both the chance to be a part of the development of such treatments and the opportunity to potentially benefit from access to these novel medicines.

We are responsible for the management and dispensing of the investigational products, ensuring good clinical practice is followed to protect the safety of the patients and the integrity of the trials.

The NCA Pharmacy Team have a number of Pharmacists and  Pharmacy Technicians  working within community services across all the NCA Care Organisations. The Pharmacy Teams work within the community, intermediate care homes, care homes and in the Salford GP practices. The Community Teams work closely with the hospital teams and a number rotate between the hospital and the community gaining experience in both sectors. The Community Pharmacy staff support patients in their homes and in the care homes to take medicines safely, ensuring they are on the correct medicines. This is vitally important when patients are discharged from hospital as often patient may not be prescribed all the correct medicines in the Community.

Across the NCA there are several cross sector Foundation Pharmacists and Student Pharmacy Technicians working between the hospital and GP Practice which prepares the students for their career when qualified and allows them to make informed decisions about their future.