Services
We are dedicated to providing patients with continued excellence in our services.
Services
For a more extensive breakdown of our services or any questions feel free to contact us.
Blister Packing
Extra care is necessary when taking several different medicines. This is particularly true for patients with visual or cognitive impairment.
Blister packs make it simple and easy to take the right medicines at the right time by dividing your tablets into separately sectioned blisters, each marked with the time of day when the tablets should be taken.
This can improve your medication adherence and reduce errors. Caregivers can also easily check that the right medicines have been taken in a timely manner.
Blister packs can help if you are
- Struggling to organise medicines.
- Finding it difficult to remember when to take your medicines.
- Helping to look after someone else.
- Recently home from hospital and suddenly have a lot more tablets to take.
- Looking after someone who is visually impaired.
- On a complex medication regime.
Blood Pressure Monitoring
Hypertension is the foremost risk factor for cardiovascular events globally and affects around a third of adults.
High blood pressure can affect people of all ages but does not always have symptoms. Untreated, high blood pressure may lead to conditions like heart disease or a stroke.
Monitoring your blood pressure for 24 hours can help work out if its consistently high. This would be particularly useful if you:
- Have family members with a history of high blood pressure.
- Suspect you have high or borderline high blood pressure.
- Experience variable blood pressure.
- Have conditions such as diabetes or high cholesterol.
- Already take medicines to reduce your blood pressure.
- Experience blood pressure that is hard to control.
- Want to check for Atrial Fibrillation (irregular heartbeat).
For convenience and proximity reasons, community pharmacies play an increasingly important role in hypertension screening and monitoring.
Our service involves fitting you with a device to wear, which includes a cuff around your arm that will measure your blood pressure for 24 hours.
Blood Pressure Category | Systolic mm Hg (upper number) | Diastolic mm Hg (lower number) | |
---|---|---|---|
Normal | Less than 120 | and | Less than 80 |
Elevated | 120-129 | and | Less than 80 |
High Blood Pressure – Hypertension Stage 1 | 130-139 | or | 80-89 |
High Blood Pressure – Hypertension Stage 2 | Higher than 140 | or | Higher than 90 |
Hypertensive Crisis | Higher than 180 | and/or | Higher than 120 |
Emergency Contraception
Emergency Hormonal Contraception (morning after pill) can be used to prevent unplanned pregnancy.
An unplanned pregnancy could occur due to mishaps with contraceptives, a missed pill, incorrect timing of patch or vaginal ring application.
Emergency contraception is not suitable as a regular method of contraception and it does not prevent pregnancy in every woman. It can be used by women of all ages to prevent unplanned pregnancy.
Emergency contraception is most effective if taken as soon as possible after unprotected sex.
However, if you are already pregnant, emergency contraceptive pills will not work.
Medical card holders can get emergency contraception directly from a pharmacy, free of charge, without having to go to their GP for a prescription.
Emergency contraception does not provide protection from sexually transmitted infections.
Our compassionate pharmacists provide access to emergency hormonal contraception (EHC) following a private consultation.
Flu Vaccination
Seasonal flu or influenza is an acute respiratory infection caused by flu viruses which circulate in all parts of the world.
Seasonal flu symptoms include a high temperature, a severe (usually dry) cough, headache, muscle pain, joint pain, sore throat, and a runny nose. A person with the flu will also feel extremely unwell.
Most people recover from the symptoms within a week or two without requiring medical attention. But flu can cause severe illness or death especially in people at high risk (see below).
Illnesses range from mild to severe and even death. Hospitalisation and death occur mainly among high risk groups.
The most effective way to prevent the flu is get vaccinated. An annual vaccination is recommended as immunity decreases over time. The flu vaccine can be administered as an injection or using an intra-nasal spray.
While everyone should consider getting a flu vaccine, it is especially important that the following groups get vaccinated:
- Persons aged 65 years and older.
- Persons with a chronic illness requiring regular follow up, e.g. chronic respiratory disease (including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cystic fibrosis, moderate or severe asthma and bronchopulmonary dysplasia), chronic heart disease (including acute coronary syndrome), chronic renal disease, diabetes mellitus, haemoglobinopathies, chronic liver disease, chronic neurological disease (including multiple sclerosis, hereditary and degenerative disorders of the central nervous system).
- Those who are immunosuppressed due to disease or treatment including those with missing or non-functioning spleens.
- All cancer patients.
- Patients with any condition that can compromise respiratory function, e.g. spinal cord injury, seizure disorder or other neuromuscular disorder.
- Persons with Down syndrome.
- Those with morbid obesity, i.e. body mass index over 40.
- All pregnant women (vaccine can be given at any stage of pregnancy).
- Healthcare workers.
- Household contacts of at-risk persons.
- Out-of-home care givers to at-risk persons.
- Residents of nursing homes and other long stay institutions.
- Carers.
- People with regular contact with pigs, poultry, or waterfowl.
Medication Usage Review
Our Medication Usage Review is a pre-booked consultation to discuss your medicines (prescribed and non-prescribed). The review helps increase your knowledge and understanding of your medicines, including how and why the medicines should be taken.
Our aim is to improve outcomes by helping you to better understand your health conditions and the medications used to manage them.
The review also provides an opportunity to highlight any issues, side effects or other medication-related problems and propose solutions if appropriate.
This review can be especially helpful for people who are older, have several chronic conditions, take multiple medications, have been using a specific medication over a longer period or are seen by multiple doctors.
Smoking Cessation
Every year in Ireland, nearly 6,000 people die because of smoking with many more suffering from smoking related diseases. The HSE estimates that 1,000 people are admitted to hospital every week with an illness caused by smoking.
In our pharmacy, we help smokers break nicotine addiction by recommending Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT). NRT comes in many different forms including patches and gums. It is important that the right option is chosen to suit individual needs.
Evidence has shown that if a smoker participates in a smoking cessation service that combines advice, support, and Nicotine Replacement Therapy that the smoker is 4 times more likely to quit compared to using willpower alone.
Weight Management
According to the HSE, obesity levels in Ireland have reached “epidemic proportions” and affect up to a fifth of all adults and result in 2,000 premature deaths annually.
Weight management means maintaining a healthy body weight. Body weight can affect health in many ways. Being overweight can increase your chances of developing high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and other cardiovascular problems.
If people maintain a healthy weight, this will decrease the risk of developing these problems. In addition to improve general health, losing weight can help to increase levels of confidence and make people feel better.
If people are serious about losing weight, we could help reach the goal, with the support of a highly trained healthcare professional on hand for information, advice, and encouragement.
We are here to help you figure out what direction is best for you as there is no such thing as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ weight management product or programme.