Robots used to process prescriptions at Lancashire Hospitals far faster than humans
New robots are being used to process prescriptions at two North West hospitals - far faster than humans can.
The bots are used to pick up medication at the Royal Preston, and Chorley and South Ribble Hospital – processing more medication in an hour than could be picked by hand in a day.
The trust said automated picking had been used for 16 years in their pharmacies, but the new robots were faster.
They have been described as similar to “giant vending machines” with a picking arm and can free up staff to support more patients.
Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LTH) has now replaced its ageing machines with the most up-to-date robotic dispensing technology which will bring even more speed to the process.The technician in charge of buying the robots and overseeing their installation told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) it means 220 pharmacy workers at LTH can be more directly involved in patient care.“Everyone thinks systems like this take people’s jobs, but the pharmacy staff has grown, if anything,” explained Richard Marshall, the lead pharmacy technician for procurement at the trust.“It means that instead of having people constantly picking all of these things manually, they can be out at the patients’ bedsides, checking their take-home medicines, checking what they brought in and providing advice on how to get the best out of their medicines.”While it is all too easy to imagine a set-up with robots roaming around the pharmacy making stereotypically staccato attempts at speech, the reality is slightly less futuristic.
The bots are so big they each require their own room – with the system at the Royal Preston having the capacity to store 40,000 medicine packs and 12,000 being able to be held at the Chorley site.The robots spring into life with the generation of a label for the medication required. The item is then picked and carried by conveyor belt to a collection point.“It reduces the risk of medication errors, such as selecting the wrong pack size or strength,” Richard says.There is still human oversight at the other end of the process from a dispenser and a second checker – with the accuracy of the original label being key to the whole process.The automated system also helps reduce waste, as the the shortest-dated products are automatically selected first.
Chorley Hospital received its new pharmacy robot late last year, while the Royal Preston’s is almost fully up and running after a six-week installation period, during which staff had to revert to the hand-picking process that many of them have never known.And while the system might be less like a robot than the image conjured up by the name Richard is not beyond indulging in a bit of anthropomorphisation, attributing human traits to the bots – to the extent where they are each going to be given a name.He is planning to hold a staff vote on the subject, but confesses to having a Star Wars-inspired favourite so far: “Pharma-C-3PO”.
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