Pharmacist Amie Bain celebrates national award

Academic Pharmacist Amie Bain is celebrating success in a national awards scheme.

Amie was part of a collaboration between Sheffield Teaching Hospital’s pharmacy and its diabetes team which jointly won the Rowan Hillson Insulin Safety Award.  Their initiative allowed diabetes patients to continue to self-manage their own condition during a stay in hospital, monitoring blood glucose levels and adjusting their own insulin doses just as they would at home.  Normally, nurses and other members of the clinical team take charge of this treatment even if a patient is in hospital for something unrelated to their diabetes. 

Amie was involved in the research phase of the project, attending Diabetes UK meetings and conducting interviews to find out what mattered to patients. She explained, “Having control of their own insulin really mattered to them.  The fact that patients really wanted to do this helped us to drive the initiative.  So it was involving patients right from the start.”

Changing how insulin is managed can make a stay in hospital safer for the patient.  “In most cases, especially if they’ve come in for something else, they’re the ones most competent to manage their own insulin.  Putting it in the hands of the patients makes it a lot safer.”  The success of the initiative means that it could be adopted by other hospitals.  Amie added, “Part of this award is to highlight the work that people are doing around the country to promote best practice, so I think it will.”

The award was presented by the Joint Diabetes Societies for Inpatient Care at a ceremony last month, following judging by a panel chaired by Dr Rowan Hillson after whom the award is named.

Although she is employed full-time by the University of Huddersfield, Amie’s research is based at Sheffield Teaching Hospital, where she works on research projects involving patients and their medicines.  Besides medication safety, she also has interests in interprofessional education, and is involved in developing links with the School of Human and Health Sciences at the University so that Pharmacy students can learn alongside students from other healthcare professions they will collaborate with in practice.

As well as her own research, Amie’s connection to the Hospital has had benefits for students on our MPharm degree.  In addition to arranging placements for numerous students at the Hospital, Amie supervises undergraduate students working at the Hospital to complete their own research projects as part of their course.  “This year three students worked on a similar theme, which was around insulin and prescribing safety in hospital.  They’ve all been really successful projects, which we hope to take forward to publication and presentation at national conferences. It’s all very valuable research that’s important both to practitioners and to patients.”

Amie is not the only member of the team at Huddersfield to work with pharmacies in the local area.  Many of the Pharmacy Practice lecturers have a more formal split role as teaching practitioners, working in clinical practice in hospital or community pharmacy for part of the week alongside their work at the University.  As well as ensuring that students are taught by practicing Pharmacists who are up to date on the latest developments, these links can lead to further opportunities for students to undertake placements or projects.  It can also benefit research, as Amie explains: “It means we have contact with patients and what’s happening currently, so it has benefits both for the student experience and for making our research contemporaneous as well.”