Miss Aoife Hendrick

Aoife decided to study pharmacy after a school trip to the Bayer pharmaceutical factory and work experience in her local hospital pharmacy department. She was inspired by the contribution that a pharmacist could make to patient care and the diversity of opportunities available as a pharmacist. She completed her MPharm at the University of Sunderland in 2012 and then started her pre-registration year at Northumbria Healthcare. A place she then worked at, in multiple different job roles for 7 years.

Most recently Aoife has been the senior clinical pharmacist specialising in diabetes and endocrine, also having responsibility for acute medicine. She has been the senior pharmacist on site with responsibility for managing the day to day running of the pharmacy team at the Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital. For the last three years she has been a line manager and has particularly enjoyed coaching staff through problems and supporting their development.

As part of her clinical role, she was responsible for insulin safety and led out on projects in relation to this. Aoife, as part of her work in acute medicine contributed to projects, including AKI’s and work on challenging penicillin allergy status.

She has completed the clinical diploma and her independent prescribing qualification under the mentorship of an infectious disease consultant. This wetted her appetite and passion for the appropriate and safe use of antimicrobials and the importance of antimicrobial stewardship. This is work she hopes to continue on a wider scale while as a Clinical Fellow in the HCAI & AMR Division of Public Health England.

As rewarding as clinical practice has been, she now wants to use her clinical skills and experience to effect greater change and improvement. She looks forward to the fellowship with a hope to gain a better understanding of decision making at a national level and develop an understanding of healthcare strategy and policy.