Clare’s career goes from patterns to prescriptions

Clare Townhill started her NHS career with a needle and thread – almost 40 years later she is finishing it working with high-tech robots.

She joined East Kent Hospitals in 1988 in the sewing room at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital, helping to alter uniforms for nurses, and repairing hospital linens so they could be re-used.

But after three years she moved to the pharmacy department, where she stayed for another 34 years. Much has changed over the decades, including the introduction of a robot to ‘pick’ medication from the shelves.

Clare, 56, who lives in Chartham, said: “This has always been my local hospital and it’s been nice to be helpful to patients.

“In pharmacy, we don’t always see the patients but you know you are helping them in their journey, wherever they are in the hospital, and hopefully playing a part in their recovery.

“I was quite accident-prone as a child so I definitely benefited from treatment here and it’s been good to keep that connection and do the same for others.”

Clare joined the sewing room after initially working in C&H Fabrics in Canterbury, and would sew labels onto uniforms to ensure they were returned to the right person from the hospital laundry.

She also sewed scrubs for theatre staff, and gowns for patients, as well as being on hand for repairs.

But after three years she fancied a change and applied for a role as a pharmacy assistant.

Initially she worked mainly with wards, helping to manage their stock of routine medications, but now her role is more around governance, particularly around prescription pads.

She said: “Working with the wards you get to see the pressure they are under and the amount of work they have to do.

“While we have been able to make changes, for example with the robot that picks the medication from the shelves, we still need people for those core roles and some things are done exactly the same way now as when I started.

“But when I started we worked as a stand-alone hospital and now there is a lot more working with teams on other sites, so you do get to see a lot of new faces.”

Clare decided to take early retirement to join her husband, who retired a few years ago. She is looking forward to being able to return to her needle and thread for her hobby of dressmaking, as well as gardening and enjoying holidays.