High-tech pharmacist of the future based in Lindley

Apr 17 2009 by Joanne Douglas, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

High-tech pharmacist of the future

MEDICINES used in Huddersfield Royal Infirmary now come from ... Lindley!

The new £8m pharmacy at Acre Mill is now producing almost half a million tablets each year.

And it is capable of manufacturing medicines for individual patients or in large-scale batches.

The pharmacy is now making all the medicines needed in both Calderdale Royal Hospital and HRI.

They are also supplying medicines to hospitals, pharmacists and chemists throughout Yorkshire.

The unit:

Processes 450,000 packs of tablets per year.

Manufactures almost 215,000 individual creams, ointments, suppositories and eye drops.

Produces more than 230,000 sterilised products for use on the wards including syringes.

It will supply about 1,000 customers in both primary care and secondary care with more than 90% of sales made to organisations outside the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust.

The unit’s running costs are recovered through the sales.

It can also make medicines that are no longer being manufactured elsewhere.

Stephen Langford, pharmacy production director, said: “There aren’t that many units of this kind, but this is the technology of the future.