Care Home Support

From the outset it has always been our aim to provide all our customers and patients with the highest standards of healthcare and customer service. Our relationship with our Care home clients has been built on this foundation and we strive to grow and strengthen these relationships every day, ensuring every need and requirement is met and exceeded.

We at R Keating Pharmacies know that providing a healthcare service is not just about dispensing prescriptions but also providing expert advice and patient care in a location that is convenient to nurses, patients and customers. We aim to provide easy access to the highest quality of healthcare services, ensuring patients get what they require at a time and a place that is convenient to them.

R Keating Pharmacies consist of Daarwood Pharmacy; Newcastlewest, Southside Pharmacy; Roxboro, Woodview, Old Cratloe Road and Ballycasey Pharmacy; Shannon as well as our online store www.pharmacystore.ie. Daarwood Pharmacy opens seven days per week all year round with late opening until 8pm Monday to Friday and until 6pm on Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays. This ensures that our customers have access to pharmacy services every day of the year if required. At R Keating Pharmacies we provide training for staff so that everyone who works in the pharmacy carries out our services confidently and respectfully and knows how to offer and provide appropriate assistance. All our Pharmacies are conveniently locatedwith easily accessible car-parks that include disability parking spaces on our doorstep.

We are available to help every day of the year should the need arise.

We are continuously trying to improve our products and services, we currently use both the Nu Life and Tosho product. This enables us to provide a unique end to end medication adherence solution that offers accuracy and efficiency for you care home and patients.

The team at R Keating Pharmacies are dedicated to the health of all patients, either within a residential home or community environment. We aim to provide a medication system that is appropriate to all patients. We can provide medicines to patients in your Care Home in the Monitored Dosage Systems (MDS), Nu-Life.

Nu-Life is the market leader in offering Care homes a complete solution for the management of patients’ medicines. The Nu-Life system along with the MAMA Application provides a single system for administering, recording and reviewing medicines for patients. Each party involved with patient care have access to the system: care centre staff, the doctor and the pharmacy.

Care Centre staff, the Doctor & the Pharmacy

The advantages of this system inlcude:

• Doctors can now digitally sign all Kardex records 
• Kardex records are updated immediately resulting in greater patient care 
• As all medicines to be administered are entered into the system, drug omissions are prevented. 
• Improved time management and efficiency of delivering medication and recording, freeing up nurses/carers time. 
• Medicines are individually sealed in removable tamper-evident pods, therefore no handling of medication is required. 
• 28-pod trays with drug and patient information printed on every pod. 
• Increases the confidence and security by knowing that what you are administering is the correct medication for the correct patient at the correct time. 
• Its’ clear and complete lay out vastly eliminates the risk of medication errors in dosage or medicine identification. 
• Drug wastage is reduced to a minimum
  

The system works by providing weekly trays for each patient containing their medication pods. Each pod identifies the patients name, what it contains and the time and date of administration. These trays are stackable and come with a trolley for ease of use. Each tray has the name of the patient on the side so they are easily identifiable when stacked.

We are confident that you will find this system Safe, Effective and Extremely Easy to Use.

The Tosho Xana tablet packing machine is an automated MDS solution that dispenses single and multi-dose medication into pouches. Tosho have extensive experience in dispensing technology with a hospital and pharmacy customer base across 20 countries worldwide, with the idea of handling drugs more safely and efficiently than before.

Compliant with strict EU Directives, Tosho products deliver precision construction and pass various quality validations.

How it Works

The Xana machine holds a range of drugs that are stored in cassettes, The dispensary software transmits the prescription details to the Xana machine and packing of the tablets commences. The tablets are dispensed into 

• Individual pill pouches 
• In chronological order, 
• With the relevant patient details, 
• Drug details, 

Drug descriptions and directions printed clearly on each pouch. The pouches can be made bespoke to each patient’s requirements - Complex dosing regimens can be incorporated into the final product such as increasing or decreasing dosages or weekly/ bi weekly regimens. The pouches: 

• Contents are clearly visible
• Can be checked efficiently 
• Easy to read details printed on each pouch 
• Can easily be opened by tearing across the perforated edge.

The Med-Easy Pill Pouch allows for Speed in checking prescriptions with Increased Safety.

Free Delivery and Collection

We believe that having a person who knows the patients and their medications and carries our regular visits is crucial and fundamental to the delivery of a good service. 

• We offer free flexible delivery & collection service tailored to your care home needs. 
• Our pharmacist or pharmacy technician will visit the Care Home to collect and deliver prescribed medication 
• Available on site to answer any queries and provide advice
  

Prescription Collection Service 

• We will liaise and developed trusting relationships with all Doctors’ surgeries associated with your care home and patients 
• We have protocols to order and collect repeat prescriptions from the surgery for required medications removing this task from your staff. 
• Presently many of our doctors have transitioned to Healthmail which is a fast, secure and efficient way of delivering patient repeat prescriptions
  

Communication

We believe in keeping communication channels open with our customers at all times. 

• pro-actively contact management and staff on a regular basis to ensure we are supporting your business needs 
• You will have a dedicated point of contact at all times to address all service issues and support
  

Innovated Ordering Service

R Keatings have designed its own robust ordering, delivery and receipt process system. We have introduced a unique innovated software application which is customised to your care home, which helps ensure that residents have all the medicines that they need at the time they need them. Processes for ordering medicines include 

• Who orders medicines 
• When medicines are ordered 
• The GP (general practitioner) from whom the medicines are prescribed 
• Clear records or copies of orders 
• Clear filed documentation of ordering and delivery

This software application ensures that care centre staff has the appropriate safeguards in place to ensure correct checking of the medicines ordered and received and that processes steps are recorded to keep in line with HIQA requirements.

Stock Control

We have a stock control system in place. 

• Eliminates excess stock because only medication that is required is ordered on a weekly basis ensuring there is no stockpiling of medicines 
• We arrange for the collection and disposal of out of date and excess medicines at our expense. 
• Medicines are then suitably destroyed in accordance with GDPR compliance and as per the PSI Guidelines on the Disposal of Medicinal Products.

Regulatory Compliance

R Keating Pharmacies comply with all HIQA and HSE requirements in relation to supply of medication to Residential Care Homes. We will work together with the management and staff of your Care Centre, to ensure that medicines management policies and procedures are comprehensive, appropriate, robust and up-to-date. 

• We have a comprehensive list of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) in place and all staff has been trained on these and any other relevant documents. 
• These SOPs ensure a safe, efficient and accurate supply of medicines to your Care Home. 
• SOPs cover the ordering, receipt, prescribing, storage and administration of medicines to people in the residential service

Audit

There’s no better way to review your processes than to have an external independent audit of the medicines management practices that operate within your Care Centre. 

• Care Home management find this a useful tool as it sometimes highlights practices that could be improved. 
• We have the facility to provide extensive medication management audits undertaken by our pharmacy team 
• Comprehensively covers all aspects of medicines management from receipt: medicines storage, the clinic room environment, record keeping, administration records, controlled drugs, ordering and receipt and disposal amongst many others.

Patients Medication Records

We build up a comprehensive computerised history of all the patients. 

• This enables us to advise of any medication interactions, previous adverse reactions or possible allergies. 
• Gather information specific to each patient in relation to any special requirements they may have. 
• Regularly carry out Medicine Usage Reviews for the patients to optimise patient care and the use of medication..

Medication Review

According to the PSI and the HSE, the legislative guidance is that the pharmacist should be participating in medication review of each patient on long term care at least every three months 

• Our pharmacists are available to play an important role in conducting medication reviews with both the care home clinical team and the patients GP. 
• Assist in supporting staff and residents with their medicine use 
• Reducing polypharmacy, improving compliance, reducing errors 
• Improving residents’ health & wellbeing and reducing waste

Training 

Our pharmacists have developed knowledge and confidence to deliver training to care centre employees.

• We are able to provide training with special consideration to the specific medicines as mentioned in the HIQA standards.
• Including antipsychotic medication, sleeping tablets and other sedating medication, analgesic medications,medication for the management of constipation, and potential interactions.
• Care home staff may also find that some of the training undertaken during the sessions can contribute towards their training records that they are undertaking to keep in line with IQA requirements to work in the care home

Covid 19 Prevention & Management

We recognise the significant impact that the Covid 19 pandemic has had on the Care Home sector. With this in mind we have tailored both our operating procedures as well as our service and product offerings to assist with your Covid 19 management.

• Covid 19 operating procedures
• Delivering Team PPE
• Online close contact management and recording
• Trained Covid 19 team champion
• Integration with customer Covid 19 policies

Products & Services

• Full PPE and Covid prevention product portfolio
• Bulk buying saving opportunities
• Covid 19 prevention managed solution
• Rapid response delivery
• Seasonal vaccination service onsite for staff

Excellent Customer Care

At R Keating Pharmacies we have been providing excellent customer service to our Care Home partners for over 15 years. We recognise that change is constant in your business and ensure our support models are flexible and can adapt quickly to your requirements.

We would like to continue discussions to ensure that the service we provide is tailor-made to suit the specific needs of your care home.

Customer Rewards Scheme

We are delighted to offer all Care Home staff and patients a 10% discount (excl. prescription medication) both in-store and online at www.pharmacystore.ie

Costs

All our services are free of charge to your Care Home. We will provide the equipment used in the supply of medicines at no cost.

• The HSE require all pharmacies to collect a prescription levy for patients on the GMS Medical Card Scheme.
• We operate a billing management process directly with your patients so you will not be billed for any patients medication costs.
• To facilitate this we have created a new patient form for the Care Home to capture all of the patients relevant details to allow the pharmacy to supply medicines to the patients without delay.
•  Continually try to minimise any costs to the Care Home patients and deal with each individual care with care and professionalism.

We recognise the Care Home business is constantly evolving and changing and will work closely with you and your team to ensure that all pharmacy related needs are closely met and exceeded.

In conclusion, we currently supply  medicines to Care Homes and through hard work and good communication by both parties we have now developed a successful formula which allows for straight forward ordering and delivery of medicines. This system is then fully backed up by the pharmacy team that is always available to help, whether by a simple phone call or an indepth training session.

Thank you for taking the time to read our proposal and I look forward to hearing from you.

Rory Keating

Managing Director 

R Keating Pharmacies