CMHP Council

Juliet qualified as a pharmacist in 1991.  She has worked in hospital psychiatry in Bath, Cheltenham, Gloucester and Wales.

In Bath, Juliet was made psychiatric pharmacist because she had done a couple of three month rotations in her pre-registration year.  She then moved to Cheltenham as the clinical pharmacist for mental health and achieved the psychiatric therapeutics certificate at this point.

For ten years Juliet was the manager of a mental health pharmacy dispensary in Gloucester, providing a clinical and supply service to the mental health trust in Gloucestershire.  It was a mixture of city problems as Cheltenham had a huge illicit drug culture, and rural issues such as transport.  She helped build a fabulous team of dispensing ATO’s, checking Technicians and Clinical Pharmacists, and they all enjoyed the challenges such a range of needs required.

She then worked as the mental health clinical pharmacist for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board visiting psychiatric inpatient units dotted around Gwent. Her drives to work were always scenic, if not a little challenging in the winter.

Juliet had a little stint co-opted onto UKPPG committee from 2000-2003, which she enjoyed immensely. Since then Juliet has had two children and has been working part time.

Head of Pharmacy for Forensic Services, Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Nikki.holmes3@nhs.net

Nikki qualified as a pharmacist in 1993. She has always been passionate about mental health since early experiences as a pre-registration pharmacy graduate and then basic grade rotational pharmacist, and she started specialising in mental health in 1996 before her first introduction into forensic mental health at Rampton Hospital in 1997. She has been a member of the UKPPG and then CMHP since this time.

In 2000 Nikki emigrated to New Zealand, working in Wellington for a year and then moving to Auckland to work for Waitemata District Health Board, the largest supplier of secondary mental health services in New Zealand. She initially worked as a clinical pharmacist in the regional forensic service before taking on the Pharmacy Team Leader role for the whole of the organisation’s mental health services. During this time she successfully attained the Aston University Postgraduate Diploma in Psychiatric Pharmacy and became one of the first two overseas pharmacists to be credentialed as a specialist mental health pharmacist by the CMHP. She also served on the committee and led the New Zealand mental health pharmacy special interest group for several years, including setting up and moderating a Yahoo email group similar to the CMHP’s group.

Nikki came back to the UK in November 2011, initially working as a clinical pharmacist at Guild Lodge in Lancashire, where she qualified as an independent non-medical prescriber. She then moved on to the Midlands as the Pharmacy Team Manager leading a pharmacy team of pharmacists and technicians working across the 250 beds and three sites of the secure and complex care services of Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, as well as working clinically on the two PICUs within the male part of the service and the personality-focussed rehabilitation unit. She also started marking on the Aston University postgraduate diploma.

In September 2015, Nikki moved slightly back up north into her current role – based back at Rampton Hospital, 15 years after she left. Nikki currently leads a team of mental health pharmacists, technicians and assistants to provide specialist clinical pharmacy and medication supply services across multiple sites and over 500 beds, comprising high, medium and low secure services with local, regional and national population remits. She also provides a clinical pharmacy service to a team within the high secure service and carries a remit of linking with pharmacy staff in the organisation’s offender health service, which covers multiple prisons across several counties.

Nikki joined the CMHP council in 2013, initially serving as Assistant Registrar and then Vice President prior to becoming President in November 2015.

Nikki is an enthusiastically outdoorsy person and is often out and about hill walking and climbing. She has been known to partake of the occasional half-marathon and once completed a 100km charity walk (definitely a once in a lifetime undertaking!). She is a keen supporter of rugby league and cricket. Whilst in New Zealand she qualified as a PADI Divemaster and is hankering after some tropical holidays so she can get back into some warm water!

Jon studied for his pharmacy degree at Leicester Polytechnic between 1975 and 1978. He did his pre-registration year in community pharmacy in Cornwall, and then managed a number of community pharmacies, latterly as an Area Manager for a multiple. In 1990 he had a change of career, and moved to an acute hospital as Principal Pharmacist. He developed a keen interest in mental health, and in 1998 when Invicta Community Care NHS Trust was formed, he moved as Chief Pharmacist. Following a number of mergers, Jon is now Chief Pharmacist of Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust. Jon has overseen the transformation of clinical pharmacy in his trust, which continues to grow.

Outside of work, Jon is a keenly competitive runner, road cyclist and walks his three dogs daily. He used to race historic racing cars, but has settled down to watching others. He is married to Nicola, a Nurse Practitioner and has 3 grown up children and two stepchildren.

Through completing her undergraduate degree at Aston it may have been inevitable that Ciara developed an interest in Mental Health. It always struck her as an area in which clinicians have the opportunity to really engage with and think about the patient as an individual and what treatment would suit their needs best rather than which slot they fit into in an algorithm.

Ciara initially worked as a relief pharmacist in community, completing her Certificate in Psychiatric Pharmacy before obtaining a mental health post in Morecambe Bay Primary Care Trust (later Lancashire Care Trust) in 2004. There she was able to work on wards including Acute Assessment Units for Adult, Elderly, and Dementia patients, a PICU, a Low Secure Unit, an Alcohol Detoxification Unit, and a Tier 4 CAMHS unit. She also worked with Supported Housing, Adult and Elderly CMHTs, CRHT, AOT and EIS Teams. Whilst in Cumbria/Lancashire Ciara attended Psych 1 and 2, completed her Diploma, and obtained her non-medical prescribing qualification.

Ciara took a minor detour into physical health working on a Respiratory ward in Derry in 2012 before returning to her native Dublin working in Private Mental Health Hospitals which she says has been quite a change from both the NHS and the UK!

She obtained full credentialled membership of the CMHP in 2013 and is now working at St Patrick’s University Hospital in Dublin with special interests in developing Medicines Reconciliation services and improving the appropriate use of Benzodiazepines. Ciara won the Hospital Pharmacy News 2014 Award for Excellence in Patient Safety. She completed her MSc in 2015 and presented her research on the impact of pharmacist counselling on the knowledge of clozapine patients at CMHP conference 2016.

Ciara believes herself to be professional, hard-working and capable. She enjoys learning and helping others to learn and has been involved in developing and delivering staff training programs and in developing Patient Information Leaflets for use in CAMHS and in Perinatal services. She has built up and maintained good working relationships in all the areas in which she has worked, both within the Multidisciplinary Team and with her Pharmacy colleagues. She is passionate about working in Mental Health and finds working directly with patients and clinical colleagues to be the most rewarding part of her job. Ciara has always found the CMHP to be an invaluable resource for support and information and is delighted to have the opportunity to be more involved in an organisation which does so much to forward the overall quality of care in mental health.

Outside of work and study she says she loves cooking, Pilates and new shoes!

Tina is chief pharmacist at Devon Partnership NHS Trust. In this role she has been supported to lead on many local, regional and national initiatives. Amongst these she is the faculty Lead for the Getting the Medicines Right work stream within the Improving Safety in Mental Health Collaborative across NHS England (South).

Qualified for over 25 years, she has experience of working as a clinical pharmacist in acute care, a prescribing adviser in primary care, and of being lead pharmacist for commissioning in the 2nd largest PCT in the country. It was this role that made her realise what was important to her and how much value she places on shaping direct patient care – it was then she decided to take on a brand new role as strategic lead pharmacist in a neighbouring mental health trust. Although not without its daily challenges, she can honestly say it’s the best decision she’s ever made!

Tina has successfully completed a variety of post graduate qualifications from health economics, prescribing sciences, management and leadership development but says it is DPTs investment in supporting her participation in the IHI Patient Safety Officer (PSO) executive training programme that has had the biggest impact on her.

She feels very privileged to have been given a great opportunity to develop and successfully establish a specialist mental health clinical pharmacy service designed and delivered using improvement methodology.

In addition to mental health pharmacy, other special interests include recovery orientated prescribing, improving physical health, medicines reconciliation, reducing harm from missed or omitted doses, developing an open and just learning culture, human factors and simulation.

Tina is well aware that she has not come into her leadership role within specialist mental health pharmacy via the usual clinical specialist / academic route and confesses to feeling slightly in awe of her more accomplished CMHP colleagues but is keen to stress that this does not mean that she is any less passionate about the NHS, pharmacy or being an advocate for Mental Health. Tina is a proactive member of a range of commissioner led, integrated care pathway groups where she works to raise awareness of a wide range of parity of esteem and MH issues within the local health and social care community. Whilst her skill set may be a bit different from the traditional council member she realises that in order to continue to improve and inform career and professional development pathways and for these other often non-technical skills that are increasingly required to lead our profession to be valued she needs first to acknowledge and value these herself. To this end Tina now feels ready to share her knowledge and experience on this with others to help further inform, shape, enhance and improve the development of Mental Health Pharmacy Leadership. She is thrilled to be offered a co-opted place on the College of Mental Health Pharmacy Council. She promises to add a different dimension which will often complement, sometimes challenge and hopefully add that new blood change Council are looking for.

Tina loves working and living in Devon with her partner Kevin, two teenage boys and adorable Scottie dog Gilbert!! When not scaring the local wildlife in lycra or neoprene either on her bicycle in the Devon hills or in the waves on the lovely North Cornish coast she can be found sampling amazing local food & drink…. Oh and to complete another Council requirement cheering on Exeter Chiefs at Sandy park!

Roz is currently the Director of Pharmacy for Addaction, a national third sector organisation.

She is the Medicines Safety Officer, Controlled Drug Accountable Officer and Responsible Person for Home Office licences for Addaction and as the organisation’s professional lead for Pharmacy, manages the National Medicines Management Team.

She has previously worked predominantly in secondary care services, including several years at Devon Partnership NHS Trust, and occasionally locums in community pharmacies. She is a credentialed CMHP member and an accredited RCGP trainer for their Drug and Alcohol Certificates. Roz has experience of tendering processes, implementing new services, and providing training for a variety of audiences and for several providers including the NHS, Local Authorities, private care providers and RCGP.

Roz has worked as a Pharmacist Topic Expert for NICE, and is now serving a three year term as an Expert Advisor and has recently been awarded a Scholarship position. She is an independent non-medical prescriber specialising in substance misuse, has contributed to CPPE publications and reviewed text book chapters on substance misuse for Oxford University Press. She has worked as a Consultant for the Choice and Medication website and is on the Editorial Board of Clinical Pharmacist.

She has actively participated in the NHS SW Quality and Patient Safety Improvement Programme and was involved with the NHS Improving Quality Winterbourne Medicines project to review the use of psychotropics for challenging behaviours in people with an intellectual disability. This project was short-listed for the National Patient Safety and Nursing Times Awards, winning the Service Evaluation Poster Prize runner up at the CMHP Conference in 2015.

Roz also won the Research Poster Prize at the Conference in 2015 for the preliminary findings of her MSc project: ‘an exploration of the use of Novel Psychoactive Substances by individuals in treatment for substance misuse’ and the Audit Prize in 2017 for ‘changing dexamfetamine prescribing practices’. As an undergraduate she spent some time studying in the USA, undertaking a project on opiate misuse and affective disorders in fibromyalgia and other chronic pain conditions, the consolidated findings of which have been recently published.

Outside of work she has a young family, plays the harp and volunteers as a marine mammal medic for the British Divers Marine Life Rescue, assisting with rescues (mostly seals and dolphins).

Lead Pharmacist for Non Medical Prescribing in Mental Health and Learning Disabilities, Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust.

Azra is a pharmacist with a broad spectrum of experience in secondary care, GP practices and community pharmacy. Through the years of work in psychiatry, she became most passionate about mental health and is now Lead Pharmacist for Non-Medical Prescribing (NMP) in mental health at Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust. She would like to participate in the advancement of clinical practice, education and research in the field of mental health pharmacy.

She started out her career as manager in a community pharmacy but then changed direction when she took up a part-time position in a mental health Trust. She was so inspired by psychiatry that she went on to study for the certificate and then diploma in psychiatric therapeutics; then credentialed with the College of Mental Health Pharmacy (CMHP). Throughout, she has remained in practice with community pharmacy and medicines management support within GP practices.

One way to improve patient outcomes is through research. This is particularly pertinent in patients suffering with enduring mental illness. She won two awards which have helped her develop her research skills: Heath Education East Midland (HEEM), then the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) for a Masters in research methods (pass with a distinction). Her research interest is the topic of shared decision making with regard to use of psychotropic medication. Medicines adherence is one of the well-recognized causes of relapse in mental health conditions; enhancing adherence through patient involvement in shared decision making should improve patient outcomes. She is excited to explore and undertake research projects in this area.

As portfolio holder for Consultation for the CMHP council, her role is to ensure involvement of CMHP and its members in consultations for guidelines such as National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

She is an Independent Prescriber and runs a pharmacist-led clinic. She trained in phlebotomy to improve patients’ uptake of therapeutic drug monitoring. She is a member of the Non Medical Prescribing Strategic Steering group for Leicester.   She represents pharmacy at the Trust Clinical Audit Standards and Effectiveness Group.

She enjoys teaching. She has previously designed the curriculum and taught on an Undergraduate Nursing course. She has provided specialist pharmacist review of Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) training material and also for the charity, Young Minds, with patient information leaflets called “Head Meds”.

In her leisure time, she loves travelling, Zumba fitness, gardening and baking. She has one daughter who got married recently and hence has a bit more time for CMHP work.

After qualifying as a pharmacist in Leicester, Zeibun spent the next 14 years in the Democratic Republic of Congo doing anything but pharmacy! Having worked in fields as diverse as helping run a construction business and teaching whilst bringing up four boys in Kinshasa, she was desperate to return to pharmacy and normality on her return from the Congo amidst civil war and general strife.

Having always had a keen interest in mental health since her undergraduate days, a friend suggested she approach the friendly head of the Towers Pharmacy in Leicester while working as a bank pharmacist for BUPA! That was in 2000; she hasn’t looked back since.

Zeibun has been a member of the CMHP since she started working at Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT) in 2000.

As the lead Pharmacist for the LPT’s Prescribing Group (Drugs and Therapeutics Committee) one of her responsibilities has been to organize managed entry of new drugs within the LPT. This led to among other things, the setting up an olanzapine depot clinic for the Trust. This has been now running successfully since 2011. Zeibun has worked in most areas of psychiatry as part of her clinical responsibilities within the Pharmacy Department of LPT.

Zeibun had the pleasure of leading a workshop at the conference in 2014 with a colleague which she enjoyed thoroughly. This gave her a taste of what it may be like to work with other members of the council and how rewarding this can be. Zeibun enjoys sharing the work she does and supporting others in furthering their work in a field which even now gets sidelined all too often. She believes we all have an important role in furthering the great work of CMHP and is relishing the opportunity to do this in a more formal way as part of the Council (which she joined in November 2015).

As her children have grown up, Zeibun feels now that the time is right to take on being a member of the Council, and she says:

“I believe there are many exciting things happening now in the field of psychiatric pharmacy especially with input from pharmacists leading the agenda of many fora. The best way to take an active part in all this is I believe to be an active member of an organisation leading these discussions nationally.”

Sushma is the Deputy Chief Pharmacist for Mental Health Services (MHS) at North East London Foundation Trust. She has over twenty-five years experience in hospital clinical pharmacy, of which twenty years have been spent caring for patients in MHS.

She is passionate about her role as a clinical pharmacist. She started her career in acute hospital and undertook her MSc in clinical pharmacy. After her MSc, Sushma initiated Shared Care Guidelines for GPs with DMARDs and initiated pharmacist led patient education session which was a new innovation in those times. In her clinical role she was the lead pharmacist for ITU and medical wards.

Sushma’s interest in mental health fell by chance when the acute hospital required a clinical pharmacist to lead a project in the closure of an old Psychiatric asylum and set up the new mental health services in the community. Since then, she has never looked back as she enjoyed the multidisciplinary approach to patient care.

To specialize in mental health Sushma continued her further education and undertook certificate and diploma in Psychiatric Therapeutics. She has also completed her Non-Medical Prescribing course and is looking to pursue this in the near future.

Sushma has been a member of the UKPPG/CMHP since 1996. She is delighted and considers it a great privilege to serve as a co-optee to the council which serves as a great opportunity to contribute to the excellent work carried out by CMHP for patients, carers and its members.

Karen is a Senior Pharmacist at Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. As Medicines Management Training Lead this role combines her specialism in mental health with her strong interest in education and training.

Karen was elected to the CMHP council in October 2016. With respect to her appointment to the CMHP Council, she said: “The CMHP has been a great support in developing my career as a mental health pharmacist, now I am keen to serve on the CMHP Council and work to promote the role of pharmacy and support other pharmacy teams, especially those working in smaller teams or in isolation. The support of the CMHP is vital to ensure the work of Mental Health pharmacy teams is promoted nationally.”

As well as coordinating the Trustwide courses delivered by the pharmacy team for other professions she is keen to support the pharmacy team with their own development. This is both within their specialist practice and with their wider professional skills, encouraging membership of national bodies to support with accreditation of competency.

In 2016 Karen won the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s (RPS) ‘Innovation in Practice’ award at their annual conference. This was for the development of a co-produced ‘Understanding your Mental Health Medication’ workshop for service users, carers and staff in the local Recovery & Wellbeing College. Supporting people to make informed decisions about their care is one part of Karen’s work she finds the most rewarding. She is also keen to promote the potential of specialising in mental health with pharmacists in their early careers by supporting placements within her Trust.

Karen qualified as a pharmacist in 2007 having undertaken her pre-registration training at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust. She continued to work there as a resident pharmacist where she completed her general clinical pharmacy training. With the opportunity to rotate through a variety of settings she was able to work in mental health and see how valued pharmacists are as part of the mental health multidisciplinary team. In 2009 she was appointed to a specialist pharmacist post and has since had experience in a variety of mental health specialties i.e. acute adult, intensive care, eating disorders, CAMHS, rehabilitation and most recently learning disabilities. In 2013 she was appointed as Advanced Specialist Pharmacist & Education and Training Lead at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust and also undertook an MSc in Pharmacy Practice at UCL. This included developing her Advanced Practice portfolio which led to her successful Royal Pharmaceutical Society Faculty submission, being accredited at Stage II, in 2015.

Karen has recently discovered the world of twitter and how social media can be used in a professional context. She can be found at @KarenPharm.

Chief Technician at Camden & Islington Foundation Trust

Neelam originally studied English and Psychology at University before completing her pharmacy training in 1998 at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. Her interest in mental health was sparked during this period when she was on a mental health rotation at Fulbourn Hospital in Cambridge. She enjoyed the MDT environment and laid back atmosphere which later led her to specialise in this area.

After qualifying as a Pharmacy Technician Neelam spent a couple of years locuming in the UK and working and travelling in Australia and New Zealand. She moved to London in 2002 to take up a post at the Maudsley Hospital as deputy dispensary manager and clozapine co-ordinator. This led to her next role as Chief Technician for Medicines Management and Education & Training at South London and Maudsley (SLaM). Whilst in this role Neelam was involved with the introduction of medicines reconciliation within the trust, re-designing the trust medication charts and writing patient information leaflets.

Whilst at SLaM Neelam became the first technician to complete the post-graduate certificate in psychiatric therapeutics, gaining a distinction. This allowed her to expand her clinical input by setting up patient clinics at a Community Mental Health Team to give patients a forum to obtain medication advice and information about treatment choices.

Neelam has written articles and case studies on depression, treatment options in psychosis, bipolar disorder, pharmacy technician training and patient safety.

After a return to general medicine last year when Neelam worked at UCL on an infectious diseases and HIV ward, she is now back working in mental health at Camden and Islington Foundation Trust where she leads the pharmacy technician services.

Neelam is also the pharmacy technician member of the General Pharmaceutical Council’s appointments’ committee which is responsible for the selection and recruitment of statutory committee members.

Neelam is excited to be the technician member of the CMHP and is keen to represent pharmacy technicians within the specialism. She hopes her contribution will encourage pharmacy technicians to advance their roles to help people experiencing mental health difficulties.

In her spare time Neelam enjoys playing tennis, reading, yoga, travelling, learning languages and running the odd half-marathon.

After qualification as a pharmacist, Richard spent his early career practising in general hospital before moving to mental health care. Following a Clinical Diploma in 2011, in 2014 he completed a PhD exploring medication administration safety in hospitals whilst working part time as a mental health clinical pharmacist. He has also recently completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education.

Today, Richard is a Clinical Lecturer in Pharmacy at The University of Manchester where he combines teaching, research and clinical practice in mental health pharmacy. He pursues research focusing on medication safety in general hospitals, primary care, prisons and mental health settings, and he teaches clinical pharmacy and patient safety topics at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Matthew has been a qualified pharmacist for a little over a decade; working in Mental Health services for the majority of this. After completing the clinical diploma with Cardiff University as a basic grade in the Royal Gwent Hospital, in South Wales; Matthew made a move into Mental Health under the tutelage of Janet Sheehan and Pat Morgan.

Matthew proceeded to complete the Psychiatric Certificate and Diploma whilst working in Gwent and Milton Keynes, where he also completed research with Ian Maidment and the National Patient Safety Agency, looking at medication incidents in Mental Health and Learning Disability settings. Then followed a spell at Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust as Deputy to Nigel Barnes.

In February 2016, Matthew was appointed as Chief Pharmacist at Nottinghamshire Healthcare, a large provider of Mental Health and Forensic Services, Community Health Services and Offender Healthcare. In March 2017, Matthew graduated from the NHS Leadership Academy Nye Bevan Programme. Recently, Matthew has taken up an Honorary Associate Professor role at the School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham.

Matthew’s interests and passions are Mental Health (with a particular interest in perinatal), clinical pharmacy, leadership, politics, twitter (@elswood_matt) and (what some might describe as hideous) electronic music.