Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital
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Pharmacy

Our Mission

Our mission is to promote the safe and effective use of medications. At the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, our Pharmacy team, consisting of two pharmacists and two pharmacy technicians, is dedicated to delivering the highest quality pharmaceutical care to our patients on time.

Dispensary Services Key Activities:

Dispensary Services Key Activities:

Our dispensary service ensures the prompt, safe, and cost-effective supply of medicines to:

  • All clinical areas
  • Selected groups of outpatients and patients at discharge
  • Procuring and distributing all medication items, including sourcing unusual ones.
  • Patient counselling and education on medication use.

Aseptic Services

We specialise in manufacturing sterile products, including drug formulations, eye drops, and injections not available commercially, within a dedicated clean room area. We also compounded Gene therapies which are using in the treatment of inherited retinal disease. The department operates an Aseptic Compounding Unit (ACU) where injectable medicines, gene therapies, and eye drops are prepared. The ACU is equipped with modern isolator in a clean room environment, and a validation programme for staff and equipment is in place. Our team develops protocols, policies, and procedures that ensure the safe administration of medicines for patients.

Medicines Information Service

Our Medicines Information service provides up-to-date, accurate, and comprehensive information and advice to healthcare professionals, promoting the safe use of medicines. This service is provided to external and internal healthcare professionals. This includes details on:

  • Indications
  • Dosage and administration
  • Contraindications and precautions
  • Adverse effects and drug interactions
  • Drug use in pregnancy, lactation, and renal or hepatic impairment
  • Drug shortages and identifying effective alternatives to ensure uninterrupted patient care.

Medication Safety

Pharmacy plays an integral role in the Medication Safety Committee at Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, promoting a safety culture among medical, nursing, and pharmacy staff.  The Chief Pharmacist is the Medication Safety Facilitator. Using Clinical judgement will review, risk rate and investigate reported medication incidents.  A non-punitive system for reporting incidents and near misses, aiming to learn from errors and prevent future harm. High reporting levels indicate a positive safety culture. Risks are identified from international medication safety groups like the Institute of Safe Medication Practice (IMSP), networking with other hospitals through the Irish Medication Safety Network (IMSN), College of Anaesthetists, and locally reported incidents. IMSP newsletters, Medication Safety minutes, ISMN bulletins and other learnings, eLearning, are developed and managed by Pharmacy.

Please see the video below on the presentation by Dr. Anthony Cunnigham


After Action Review: An effective Quality Improvement

Professor Anthony Cunningham, Medical Director, Galway clinic
Mark McCullagh MSc, MPSI Clinical Risk Advisor, State Claims Agency

RVEEH Clinical Guidelines and Antimicrobial App

The Pharmacy maintains the hospital clinical guidelines app. The app includes A&E guidelines for the treatment of emergency ophthalmology conditions. There are also clinical guidelines such as treatment of hypokalaemia. This includes a weekly update of drug shortages. The second app is antibiotic guidelines which is updated by Pharmacy and consultant microbiologists.

Antimicrobial Stewardship

The Pharmacy promotes the appropriate use of antimicrobials, such as antibiotics, ensuring they are prescribed safely and through an Antimicrobial Stewardship programme. This is a coordinated effort to optimize the use of antimicrobial medications, such as antibiotics, to combat the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance. This involves ensuring that patients receive the right medication, at the right dose, for the right duration, and only when necessary.

Key priorities the antimicrobial stewardship programme include

  • Monitoring antibiotic prescribing and resistance patterns
  • Completing audits.
  • Implementing interventions to improve antibiotic use, such as guidelines and protocols
  • Regularly reporting information on antibiotic use and resistance to healthcare staff
  • Providing education and training to healthcare providers about optimal prescribing practices such as Grand Rounds

Inpatient Clinical Pharmacy Services

Our Clinical Pharmacists work at ward level as part of a multidisciplinary team, delivering pharmaceutical care to patients. The Clinical Pharmacy Service includes:

  • Obtaining an accurate history of the patient’s pre-admission medication
  • Reconciling medications prescribed during the inpatient stay
  • Reviewing and monitoring therapy during the inpatient stay
  • Medicines optimisation
  • Management of polypharmacy

Clinical pharmacists promote the safe, effective, and economical use of medicines by providing up-to-date and accurate information and advice to healthcare professionals within the hospital

When attending hospital appointments, please bring an up-to-date list of your medications. You can obtain this list from your pharmacy. The form below can be used to complete this information.

application/pdf icon Patient Medication List.

Contact information