THREE robots have been tasked with taking a hospital's new pharmacy into the fast lane.

The new pharmacy, which aims to improve safety, security and speed of services, has opened in a new location on the ground floor of Glan Clwyd Hospital.

The redeveloped unit benefits from three dispensing robots who can manage a maximum capacity of 38,000 items, an increase of about 10 per cent on the previous pharmacy.

Each of the new robots have two dispensing heads, allowing them to work faster and more efficiently.

Lis Dubourg, pharmacy hospital operations manager, said: "We’ve had so much positive feedback from staff using the new pharmacy with the more efficient service we can provide, plus this is a much nicer area to wait in while picking items up.

"It’s a much better, quieter place for our staff to work, and the new equipment we have has significantly improved our efficiency.

"Our production unit makes easy-to-use overlablled products – there are generic labels where nurses or doctors can fill in simple details and provide packs of, for example, antibiotics or analgesics without the need for us filling details in.

"This improves the speed in which items can be provided to patients, and allows them to be provided out of hours.

"It makes what we do safer with clear, easy to follow instructions, and saves nurses time mixing pharmaceuticals which can instead be spent with patients."

The redevelopment has also opened up cost-saving opportunities.

Lis added: “In the old pharmacy, you might have one item on a shelf in the dispensary and the same one in our distribution area. Here there’s only one store, so that means we can reduce our stock holding, making a significant saving.

"It also means that staff only have to go to one place for whatever they’re looking for, and our pharmacy system will handle actually retrieving stock."

The pharmacy has been completed as part of a seven year project to redevelop the main hospital site. The project has seen asbestos stripped from departments and wards throughout the hospital, which was originally built in 1980.