Pharmacist playing key role at Blaenau Ffestiniog surgery

Senior Pharmacist for Primary Care and Community Hospitals, Ceri Williams, works as a practice pharmacist at Canolfan Goffa Ffestiniog.

 

Over the last 16 years she has worked as a hospital and community pharmacist managing patient’s medication.

 

She said: “I now mainly work as a practice pharmacist in Blaenau Ffestiniog. I thoroughly enjoy my work as every day is so varied and I have a lot of patient contact – which is the best part of the job.

 

“I feel having a pharmacist at the surgery is a real benefit for patients.

 

“My role is to ensure the patients get the best out of their medication. I usually see patients who take a lot of medication or have a chronic disease such as Hypertension or Diabetes that’s poorly controlled.

 

“I spend time going through patients' medication to ensure that they know what they take and why, I also work with patients to set treatment goals. It is not all about medication, it’s also about living a healthy life to try and reduce the amount of medication they have to take.”

 

Ceri is one of several members of staff from Canolfan Goffa Ffestiniog to feature in the new fly-on-the-wall series, Helo Syrjeri, which gives the viewer a glimpse of the busy everyday lives of the GPs, the staff and patients, and what brings them together in the tight-knit community of Blaenau Ffestiniog and the surrounding area.

 

“I have to say that I wasn’t excited about the prospect of being on TV!

 

“However I felt it was important for the public see that pharmacists have an important role to play in patient care and that our role has changed a lot, with many of us now prescribing. 

 

“When I started in my role at the practice some patients found it difficult to understand why they were seeing me instead of the GP, but now I have patients asking to see me - which is great,” added Ceri.

 

Helo Syrjeri continues Monday nights at 8.25pm on S4C.