A leukaemia patient was “referred for treatment immediately” after they received “timely access and a thorough consultation” from a pharmacist, Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS) yesterday (April 11) revealed.
Last autumn, independent prescribing (IP) community pharmacist Victoria Lang “received a consultation request through the service from a concerned patient representative about an unwell family member”, CPS said.
“They had been advised by the GP to speak to their community pharmacist,” it added.
Read more: Dismissed nine times by GP: Pharmacist ‘saves life’ of student with brain tumor
“When the patient arrived at the pharmacy, they were visibly unwell, requiring support from the family member who had accompanied them,” CPS said.
“When the [IP] training says assessment begins at the door, this really was the case…the patient’s demeanour and presentation that day did ring alarm bells for me,” Lang said.
Read more: Pharmacist saves three lives in four weeks
CPS said that she went on to spot “a few red flags on top of the patient’s presentation” throughout the Pharmacy First Plus consultation, including recent neutropenic episodes, intolerances to previously prescribed antibiotics and a sore throat.
Lang identified “multiple possible infections and noted the patient’s deteriorating health - she promptly referred the patient to the GP for an urgent same-day appointment”, CPS added.
“Six weeks later, Victoria and her pharmacy team found out that the patient had indeed been diagnosed with leukaemia and had been referred for treatment immediately,” it said.
Leukaemia campaign “the same week”
“This consultation happened to take place during the same week that Victoria’s pharmacy was hosting a leukaemia awareness campaign, as September is blood cancer awareness month,” CPS said.
What’s more, Lang’s “own journey with a leukaemia diagnosis allowed her and her pharmacy team to be vigilant to signs”, CPS added.
“Although we refer multiple patients each week to their GP, we don’t usually get to know the outcome and I think we usually hope that our instincts are wrong,” Lang said.
Read more: ‘Lives saved’ as over 300 pharmacy staff take-home naloxone trained
“The experience has helped me to understand that initial assessment of the patient before any questions are asked does guide our consultation and influence the outcome,” she added.
CPS stressed that the symptoms include persistent fatigue, unexplained bruising or bleeding, frequent infections, fever, night sweats, bone/joint pain and swollen lymph nodes.
“Powerful example”
CPS stressed that Lang’s actions are a “powerful example of incredible patient care”.
It applauded her “commitment to ensuring that any patient using a community pharmacy service receives timely access and a thorough consultation”.
“This real-life case highlights the vital role of the community pharmacy network in Scotland and showcases the incredible interventions you carry out every day to ensure people receive the right care in the right place,” it said.
Read more: How Pharmacy First allowed me to save a patient from waiting at A&E
“Well done to Victoria and her team,” it added.
Meanwhile in September, a student told C+D that one phone call with her local pharmacist finally led to a lifesaving brain tumour diagnosis after two years of misdiagnoses by GPs and A&E doctors.
Lucy Younger’s “bizarre” symptoms, which included seeing “pink elephants” in lectures and “smelling bacon” despite her being vegetarian, started when she began as a university student in 2018.
Read more: Scotland to roll out national naloxone service as pharmacy saves two lives
But Younger was dismissed nine times by doctors, one of whom told her that “a girl of [her] age would not have a brain tumour”.
Eventually her local pharmacist recognised the symptoms as temporal lobe seizures, having had patients with epilepsy in the past.
“He literally saved my life,” she told C+D at the time.
