Big thanks to everyone on  HRI's Ward 20 and in pharmacy for making Perfect Medicines Week a success. (July 17-23)

We were able to take away several points of learning - a chief one being not to interrupt when a colleague in a red tabard is doing the drugs round on the ward.

The positivity of colleagues was hailed at a de-brief meeting by matron Jan Carter and echoed by our Chief Nurse Brendan Brown. He said: "Colleagues coped with this week on top of their day jobs, so a big thank you is deserved. It was so well-played."

Jan said: " The team really enjoyed it. They felt supported throughout."

The week was staged by the Trust  to look at our medicines management on a ward and how the nurses, pharmacists and doctors can change the way they work to deliver a better multi-disciplinary approach.

Ward 20 was selected as their patients are a mix of trauma, elective and complex. The idea of a "perfect week" is to make it learning through team working. As issues arose they were logged at a central command for action. Some were quick fixes on the day others require a longer-term look at how we can change the way we work.

Pharmacy's Fiona Smith, said: "It was good to see nursing and pharmacy staff working together to troubleshoot problems and overall was a very positive experience.  We were able to understand some of the problems that staff are facing using EPR for prescribing and medicines administration and put in place some additional training for colleagues which helps them manage the system."

The idea is now to stage another in a different setting and this will be on the Short Stay Unit at CRH starting September 4.