NHS Lothian

The Critical Care Medicines Response Team was created rapidly in response to the predicted increase in critical care bed base from 50-to-90, with the potential to increase further, across three hospital sites during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The skillmix of the team was carefully balanced and was composed of highly specialised critical care pharmacists, ‘returning to practice’ pharmacists who had previously worked in critical care, the head of Medicines Procurement and Distribution, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, the lead pharmacist, Pharmacologistics Service, NHS Lothian, a pharmacy systems analyst and the principal pharmacist, Education and Training, NHS Lothian.

The team were extremely organised, with cross-site resilience and business continuity planning for the pharmacy service to critical care units, and through their keen utilisation of video conferencing.