Meet Verity Cross, Lead Clinical Pharmacist in our Medicines Optimisation Team.
Early days
“I always enjoyed my science subjects at school, and I wanted a career which enabled me to continue to learn about these subjects. I was also very keen that I could have a career which enabled me to help people and was vocational.”
Training
“I completed the 4-year Master of Pharmacy degree at The University of Manchester and went on to do my pre-registration year at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, where I also worked for the next six years. During these six years I gained additional qualifications such as a clinical diploma, which is a two-year course, and I also completed my independent prescribing qualification.”
Career path
“The early part of my career was spent in hospital pharmacy. I rotated around specialities, spending time on oncology, cardiovascular, surgical, and respiratory wards to name but a few. I eventually specialised in critical care and spent nearly 3 years working on the critical care wards, which was one of my favourite jobs, and the sector in which I completed my independent prescribing. I enjoyed this as it enabled me to develop my clinical skills to a high standard and gave me an insight into the extremes of illness and how to treat patients when they are critically ill.
While I was working in hospital, I used to often notice problems with patient’s normal repeat medication, and this prompted my move to primary care, as I wanted to try and help fix these medication issues. I have worked in several different roles in primary care – from running medication clinics through to triage and contributing to multi-disciplinary team reviews in care homes. During COVID I returned to hospital work for 8 months and worked on the infectious disease ward, specifically with COVID patients, and I am proud to have done this at the height of the pandemic.
As a pharmacist ensuring patients are taking right treatment and able to obtain the best possible outcome from medicine use is vital to me. Working for an ICB is one of the best ways to help to achieve this aim on a large scale. One of my goals as a pharmacist is to ensure that the best use is made of NHS funds – we know that as much as £300 million is wasted every year on unused or partially used medication. By helping to reduce and prevent this wastage we can ensure that funds are preserved for life saving, time critical treatments, and that every patient receives the care that they need.”