Section Five- Extension Activity
During the five days I was there, I observed a lot of teamwork, and in my opinion that’s what is keeping the organisation going so successfully. For example, when new stock is delivered to the pharmacy, one person would open the many boxes, another would put the medication into piles according to name and strength and another would place these piles of medication on the shelves. It was a joy to watch for the first time, because I genuinely thought it would be impossible because of the great number of large cardboard boxes there were, but it was all finished in about half an hour. For each delivery that took place after this, I took part in this team, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In addition, the main purpose of the organisation is to supply medication to patients, and I’ve seen that the pharmacy receives a lot of prescriptions with many items on it. On the Wednesday, I remember we had to deal with 100 prescriptions. Here teamwork is absolutely essential and I played a major role in collecting medication off the shelves according to what each prescription required. If I was struggling to find a certain medication, I would ask my colleagues and they would help me out, therefore making the process much quicker. It is important that you don’t make mistakes when collecting medicine, because if you give the wrong medication to a patient, then this could have severe consequences so I made sure I asked even when I was only slightly unsure. I saw that on some occasions a member of staff would ask another to check whether they have counted out the right number of tablets for the patient. I observed that there was a constant checking process and this was motivating because the staff clearly wanted everything to be perfect for their patients. Moreover, when the medicine was collected and put into baskets (before they were bagged) the pharmacist (manager) would check with the prescription that we had collected the exact right medication before it being bagged and given to the patient. The result of teamwork here is that everything takes places quickly, efficiently and mistakes are eradicated. The teamwork in Solihull Care Walk-In centre was also incredibly important, and the staff was clearly working together to get as much work done as quickly as possible, to increase the efficiency of the organisation and to decrease the number of patients having to wait. For example, there were two receptionists; one receptionist would be on the telephone booking appointments (pre-book appointments) for people who are calling in by phone and another receptionist giving forms to patients who are simply walking in. There were two different forms; one of them was for people who have been before and another for people who haven’t. When the forms have been filled, the patient details would be typed onto the computer system and saved, and an appointment booked for them at the same time. I was lucky enough to do all this on the final day! This way, the receptionists are doing two different jobs, hence are getting more done. Whereas, in the Pharmacy, there seemed to be teamwork all for one purpose which is to supply medication for the patients. In the GP, I observed that there were different jobs taking place, from doctors seeing the patients to shredding by secretaries. I did have to do this unfortunately, which was definitely the least enjoyable part of my experience, but it is all part of the teamwork! In addition, in the GP, it is compulsory that every member of staff (discluding the doctors but including the manager) to complete one hour every day of attaching patient details onto the computer system. There is a great amount of scanning etc. to be done here and when I had arrived, there were about seven thousand sheets of different patient details on the computer system needed to be attached! For this reason, teamwork is crucial and the member of staff must co-operate to complete the one hour of attaching. However tedious it is, it is very important.
