The Royal Preston and Chorley and South Ribble Hospital have installed dual systems which utilise picking arm sorting machines.
The new robots, which are so big they each require their own room, grant the hospital’s 220 pharmacists greater time to devote to patient care.
Each system at the Royal Preston having the capacity to store 40,000 medicine packs, the Chorley robot will pick from around 12,000 items.
The robots remain in a dormant state until an order is made and a corresponding collection label is generated.
The prescription is then picked and carried by conveyor belt to a collection point.
The automated system also helps reduce waste, as the the shortest-dated products are automatically selected first.
Chorley Hospital received its new pharmacy robot late last year, while the Royal Preston’s is almost fully up and running after a six-week installation period.
During that time, staff had to revert to the hand-picking process, which some of them had never had to do before.
Lead pharmacy technician for procurement at the Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Richard Marshall, said: “Everyone thinks systems like these take people’s jobs, but the pharmacy staff has grown, if anything.
“Instead of having people constantly picking all of these things manually, they can be out at the patients’ bedsides, checking their take-home medicines, checking what they brought in and providing advice on how to get the best out of their medicines.”
