A son has sent a heartfelt thank you to the pharmacy team who supported his late father, after a six-week stay in hospital.
While at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, many changes were made to 80-year-old Graham Butterworth’s medication, resulting in a lot for the family to sort out once he was home again.
But thanks to the dedicated and compassionate care provided by Pharmacy Technician Katie Ogilvie and the Integrated Pharmacy Team at Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust (KCHFT), what could have been a stressful and confusing time turned into a much smoother and supported transition back home.
Simon said: “Katie was brilliant. She came to Dad’s flat, spoke with the GP to get prescriptions updated and organised the medication so it would all run out at the same time, making it easier to manage. She liaised with the pharmacy so medication would be delivered rather than needing to be collected and spoke with the hospital about follow-up appointments. She even helped us with the NHS app, to make everything easier.”
Katie also gave the family a clear medication chart, listing what each medicine was for and when to take it. Simon said: “It really helped us keep track and feel confident Dad was getting the right treatment. Katie was kind and patient and made a tough time a lot easier for our family.
“It’s hard when you need to look after a parent who is struggling. There’s no textbook on what you should do, so when someone offers to help, it’s brilliant.”
Graham, who lived in Faversham, was a bank manager for all of his working life and sadly passed away in September, 2025. Simon, 57, from Gravesend, said: “Dad was an intelligent and amiable man and would talk to anyone. He adored his grandson Tom and was chuffed with Tom’s recent GCSE results.”
Simon contacted the KCHFT team after the William Harvey Hospital, in Ashford, gave him a list of handy contacts as his dad was discharged. The team is working closer with hospitals to make sure patients have the medications they will need when they return home.
Pictured above: Graham and Simon Butterworth
Earlier medicines support for patients discharged from hospital
The Integrated Pharmacy Team is making life easier for patients who have been in hospital, by quickly stepping in to support them once they are back home.
It has been working closely with three hospitals in east Kent, encouraging them to make greater use of their team, so they can support discharged patients sooner. The hospitals are William Harvey Hospital, Kent and Canterbury Hospital and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother (QEQM) Hospital in Margate
As referrals steadily rise, more patients are receiving timely help to manage their medications correctly and stay well in the community.
Pharmacy technicians Katie Ogilivie and Jane Wheadon, led the quality improvement project.
Katie said: “We were finding that some older and frail people were leaving hospital and returning home confused about their medicines. We wanted to be able to help them sooner, to keep them well and to prevent them having to go back to hospital.
“Patients aren’t always taking their medicines correctly after a hospital stay. This can be due to many factors. Sometimes patients are in a hurry to leave hospital and get home, some may have been disorientated by a hospital stay, some patients say they have help at home when they do not and also the transition from hospital to home can be quite challenging, Hospitals do their best, but we thought that processes could be improved so that patients have a better experience and outcomes.”
To get more referrals from the hospitals the team shared a leaflet about themselves with healthcare professionals. They also met with hospital frailty, pharmacy, discharge and ward staff to promote what they do. Back at KCHFT they made changes to the electronic patient record system Rio, so that patients discharged from acute hospitals are quickly identified and seen sooner.
Katie said: “The changes mean that when patients come out of hospital, they get our support quicker. While in hospital medications can be changed and people might need help with this once they are back home, to make sure they are taking the right medications, at the right times and the correct dose.”
The team used a quality improvement (QI) approach to the work, having taken part in the trust’s QI Together programme, with sessions held over several months. Katie said: “This helped us to break down the problem and to identify what we needed to do. Our QI Team was very supportive.”
Pictured above, Katie Ogilivie and Jane Wheadon, from the Integrated Pharmacy Team, with their QI Together certificates.