Profile
Hannah Godden
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About Me:
Pharmacist with a passion for running and coffee
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My Work:
Specialist Mental Health Interface Pharmacist
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My Typical Day:
There is no typical day!
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Read more
When working with the community mental health team, I run clinics in the mornings and spend the afternoons following up actions from clinic, recording notes and responding to queries about medicines from other members of the team (consultant psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses etc).
When working for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire CCG my days are very flexible and there is no typical day! We are working from home at the moment so our meetings are all done online. I tend to prioritise my work each week and allocate time to different projects or to answering queries.
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Education:
Secondary school, Sixth form college for 2 years, University of Bath for 4 years
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Qualifications:
10 GCSEs grades A*-C, 3 A-Levels grades A*AA, Masters Degree in Pharmacy , Postgraduate diploma in pharmacy practice and Independent Prescribing Qualification
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Work History:
After university I did my pharmacist pre-registration training year at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. When I qualified as a pharmacist I worked at Leeds Teaching Hospital for 2.5 years as a junior rotational pharmacist – here I got clinical experience in care of the elderly, cardiology, respiratory medicine, paediatrics, surgical medicine, oncology (cancer) and emergency medicine. I then got a job as a specialist mental health pharmacist in Nottingham – this involved working on acute mental health wards.
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Current Job:
Specialist mental health interface pharmacist – I work across both primary care (with GPs) and secondary care (with mental health teams). This means working to improve existing pathways for mental health medicines across Nottinghamshire and ensuring that decisions made about mental health medicines are robust and implemented across the county. I manage complex queries from both GPs and specialists about mental health medicines. I also have a clinical role in a mental health team 2 days per week where I see patients with a severe mental illness for medicines review and optimisation.
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Workplace:
3 days per week – Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Clinical Commissioning Group (currently working from home due to the pandemic)
2 days per week – A mental health community team base
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Quick Fire Questions
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Medicines expert powered by coffee
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Blink 182
What's your favourite food?
Anything with halloumi on it
What did you want to be after you left school?
A pharmacist or physiotherapist
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Only for being bossy in infant school!
What's the best thing you've done in your career?
Recently I have completed an extra qualification to be an independent prescriber specialising in adult mental health. This means that I now have my own caseload of patients with severe mental illness and I see them regularly to review their medicines. It’s really rewarding to build up those therapeutic relationships with patients and use my expertise in medicines to help improve their quality of life.
What or who inspired you to do your job?
My mum works in the NHS and she helped to arrange work experience with primary care and secondary care pharmacists when I was in secondary school. Many years later and I now work for those teams!
If you weren't in healthcare, what job would you do?
A chemistry or biology teacher
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
To stay healthy
To continue with a good work/life balance
To travel again once the COVID-19 pandemic is over
Tell us a joke.
I once heard a joke about amnesia, but I forgot how it goes
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