In July 2024, the Neonatal ODN appointed a Lead Pharmacist, Sian Gaze, to oversee the delivery of neonatal pharmaceutical services in London.

Sian works on Mondays and Thursdays in her network role – the remainder of the week, she is employed at Evelina London Children’s Hospital as the Lead Pharmacist for the Medicines & Neonatology directorate. She is a Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacy Group (NPPG) committee member and currently chairs the NPPG’s Neonatology Specialist Interest Group.

Currently, there are pharmacists employed in each of the 27 neonatal units in London. Sian has created a group called the London Neonatal Pharmacist Forum; they are meeting monthly to discuss successes, challenges and service priorities in their neonatal units.

The group is aiming to align practice across the network in areas such as:

– PN delivery, antimicrobials, antifungals, pain and sedation management, probiotics and standardising concentrations of neonatal continuous IV drug infusions.

Sian is passionate about education and training, and has enjoyed being asked to deliver teaching to London ODN network’s neonatal nurses on medication management, as part of the ANQiS course.

In the UK, neonatal pharmacists do not currently have a structured training pack – therefore, the London Neonatal Pharmacist Forum are developing and will be piloting a resource. Neonatal parenteral nutrition is another important area to focus on; Sian is working with colleagues across other neonatal ODN networks in the UK, to develop a multi-disciplinary training pack, which should be published in 2025. Sian is a core member of the London Neonatal Nutrition Group (LNNG) and is looking forward to contributing to the ‘Hot Topics’ webinar which has been organised in November.

If you would like to know more about what neonatal pharmacists do and how we can support in your unit, you can watch our recent Bliss webinar HERE (scroll down to ‘previous events’ to find it).  Pharmacists in London neonatal units are getting more involved with delivering Family Integrated Care – the Paddington resources (available via the Medicines for Children website) are an excellent tool for helping neonatal pharmacists to deliver Medicines Information to families and carers.