Pharmacy Department

The Pharmacy Department provides a comprehensive range of pharmaceutical services to patients and staff in SVUH. Our principal objective is to provide patient-focused pharmaceutical care in order to achieve definite outcomes that improve patients’ quality of life. The department has a skill mix of pharmacists, pharmaceutical technicians, pharmacy aides, administrative staff and porters. The main strands of the pharmacy service are:

Dispensary Service

St Vincent’s University Hospital has a busy dispensary. The dispensary is responsible for medicines procurement and management, distribution of medicines to wards and clinical areas and non-aseptic (extemporaneous) compounding. In addition the dispensary provides a limited dispensing service for patients on discharge and for outpatients to ensure seamless pharmaceutical care.

Clinical Pharmacy Service

Clinical pharmacists work closely with doctors, nurses and other members of the multi-disciplinary team to ensure that patients receive optimal pharmaceutical care while attending the hospital. Clinical pharmacists have a key role in monitoring and reviewing patients and their medications, providing medication counselling where appropriate and liaising with community pharmacy colleagues and GPs to promote seamless pharmaceutical care after discharge.

Medicines Information (MI)

The Medicines Information service (MI) strives to optimise patient care through the provision of accurate, up-to-date, unbiased information on medication use to health care professionals within the organisation, both in terms of individual patient care, and in the provision of general information on safe use of medicines. MI can be contacted via telephone or via clinical pharmacist or technician. The MI service is open for enquiries from 8.30 – 16.30 hours Monday to Friday.

Aseptic Services Unit

SVUH has a busy oncology and haematology service. The pharmacy has a Aseptic Services Unit (ASU) that operates under Good Clinical Practice, where all the chemotherapy for patients in the hospital is prepared under sterile conditions. The ASU is also involved in the preparation of products for ENT, Transplant patients, Ophthalmology, Interventional Radiology, Urology and other departments. The unit is open from 08.30 – 16.00 hours Monday to Friday.

Medication Safety

The aim of the medication safety service, provided by the pharmacy, is to identify risks to patient safety associated with the use of medication and to prevent harm by recommending measures to minimise these risks.

Education and Formulary

Pharmacists and technicians are involved in supporting ongoing research projects, in particular clinical research in oncology. Pharmacists are also involved in teaching and tutoring undergraduate and postgraduate healthcare personnel and in clinical training of pharmacists in particular for the M.Sc. in Hospital Pharmacy in Trinity College Dublin and the National Pharmacy Internship Programme. The pharmacy department co-ordinates the production and publication of the Medicines Guide for the hospital.

Telephone extensions / Fax numbers

Dispensary service : 01 2214518
Dispensary Fax : 01 2213790
Aseptic Services Unit fax : 01 2601260