Medway School of Pharmacy lecturer, and community locum pharmacist, Trudy Thomas is the first pharmacist to have been awarded a bursary from the International League Against Epilepsy (ILEA). The funding is to support her to study an epilepsy module being run jointly by the Epilepsy Society and South Bank University. The module, which covers the pathophysiology of the epilepsies and investigation and diagnosis, has been run for epilepsy specialist nurses for a number of years. This year, for the first time, it is being offered to GPs and pharmacists who wish to be accredited as Practitioners with Specialist Interest in Epilepsy.
Trudy has worked with Kent GPwSI, Greg Rogers, who is the Royal College of General Practitioners’ epilepsy champion, to train pharmacists to undertake Medicine Use Reviews with people with epilepsy. Trudy and Greg originally ran training for a small group of pharmacists in Thanet, Kent, which then led to Trudy this year collaborating with the Welsh CPPE to train around another 180 pharmacists.
Trudy is currently working on projects with both the Epilepsy Society and the other main UK epilepsy charity, Epilepsy Action, to help pharmacists in primary care support people with epilepsy. Trudy would love to hear from any other pharmacists involved in supporting people with epilepsy, particularly in primary care. Her email is t.thomas@gre.ac.uk