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.

“We can make individual bottles of medicine for the patient as requested by the clinicians.

“We are very close to the clinicians working in Calderdale and Huddersfield and we have close contact with what goes on and what is needed.

“The prospects for the future are colossal.”

The Huddersfield centre is one of just 16 units in the UK.

It has been created with £46m of funding from the Department of Health to create pharmacy manufacturing units within the NHS to supply to NHS hospitals and facilities.

Business manager Andy Mabbott added: “Our aim is a combination of providing a service to patients and providing them with the medicines that they need.

“But equally we have to be a viable business and develop ourselves as an NHS organisation who can progress and develop as any other business.”

Mr Langford added: “In 60 years of the NHS we have always manufactured our own medicines.

“In this centre we can make sure that the continuation of supply for this area is available for patients which is very important.”

The unit is one of the biggest pharmacy manufacturers in the country.

It currently has 48 members of staff from pharmacists and chemists to lab analysts and formulation development workers.

The purpose-built development is part of a drive to move some non-clinical services out of the main HRI building to create more space for patients.

The pharmacy at Acre Mill is part of a thriving future of NHS developments in the town.

Two multi-storey car parks for the adjoining site have already been approved, along with office space and hospital accommodation.