CMHP Council

Roz is the Director of Pharmacy for Humankind, a national UK Charity. Before moving to the third sector, she previously worked in secondary care services, and regularly locumed in community pharmacies. She is a credentialed CMHP member and a senior 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 organisations including the NHS, Local Authorities and private providers.

Roz has previously been awarded a Scholarship position and provided Expert Advisory work for NICE. She is an independent non-medical prescriber and recently completed a three year term on the GPhC statutory committee. Roz has contributed to online resources, national publications, and text book chapters. She is an Expert Mentor for the RPS and Advisor for BBC’s EastEnders and is a member of Drug Science’s Scientific Committee and the MEP Advisory Panel.

In 2019, she co-led the UK’s first Home Office licensed drug checking service. Roz 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.  Roz has won numerous prizes for her research and innovation work, and is currently completing a Doctorate focusing on the misuse of over the counter and prescription medication.

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.

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 Chief Pharmacist 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!

Tara is currently the Lead Pharmacist for the Mental Health Network at Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust.

Tara qualified as a Pharmacist in 2005 and has since worked in a variety of roles, including that of a rotational hospital Pharmacist, Community Pharmacy Manager and Urgent Care Pharmacist before starting her career within Mental Health.

Tara was first introduced to Mental Health Pharmacy whilst a pre-registration trainee, during which she undertook a short placement with her current employer LSCFT. Whilst the immediate years post-registration saw Tara gain more generalist experience it was always her aim to find her way to becoming a Pharmacist within Mental health.

In 2009 Tara secured her first position as a Junior Pharmacist with then LCFT working on the psychiatric inpatient unit in Blackpool. During her initial years as a Mental Health Pharmacist Tara gained experience on adult , older adult and psychiatric intensive care unit wards.

Completion of the Aston Diploma provided underpinning knowledge to support growing experience within adult mental health. As clinical experience grew Tara progressed within the organisation initially to an Advanced Pharmacist position providing clinical Pharmacy support to a variety of Community Mental Health Teams and Urgent Care Mental Health Teams. After qualifying as an Independent Non-Medical Prescriber in 2011 Tara established a Pharmacist led prescribing clinic within two Fylde CMHT’s and later providing prescribing support into Mental Health Single Point of Access.

Over more recent years Tara has taken on the role of Deputy Lead Pharmacist then Lead Pharmacist firstly providing professional leadership to the Children and Young Peoples Network (CAMHS, Eating Disorder Services and Early Intervention Services) before taking on her current post as Lead Pharmacist with the Mental Health Network.

Tara is passionate about supporting patients to make informed decisions around their treatment, especially women of childbearing potential. Tara enjoys taking the lead on Quality Improvement initiatives within her organisation and has most recently contributed to focussed improvement of quality and safety of care following the use of rapid tranquillisation.

Tara is also a Mum to three boys who are all very keen footballers. So outside of work of both an evening and weekend she is most likely braving the elements at pitch sides up and down the country.

Tara considers it to be a great privilege to have been co-opted to serve on the council and is looking forward to contributing to the highly valued work carried out by the CMHP

Michael qualified as a pharmacist in 2000. He first worked at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for two years as a resident pharmacist where he did a three month rotation in mental health. He then went on to join Leeds and York Partnership Foundation Trust where he has worked ever since 2002. He has rotated round various mental health specialities including general adult, psychiatric intensive care, forensics, eating disorders, CAMHS, learning disabilities and older adult psychiatry. However, he has spent the last 14 years in general adult psychiatry. His role for the last 10 years has been Lead Pharmacist for Medicines Information, Research and Audit. In 2014, he finally completed his portfolio, sat the viva and became a credentialed member of CMHP.

Outside of work, Michael enjoys fell running, mountaineering and spending time with his young family.

Nicola is the lead pharmacist for mental health at North East London NHS Foundation Trust having previously managed a specialist mental health Medicines Information service for over 5 years.  Nicola is keen to expand knowledge of mental health  across sectors and has provided a number of webinars and articles aimed at increasing pharmacists knowledge around a range of mental health topics including perinatal mental health, dementia and schizophrenia.

Her interest in psychiatry started as a student where she chose schizophrenia for a specialist subject and then grew when she first worked closely with a mental health nurse in an intermediate care service and then was asked to write a guide on the use of antidepressants in renal impairment for UKMI.  The need to fully appreciate psychopharmacology and the use of pharmaceutical knowledge drew her in as she could see how pharmacists could make a real difference.   She started working in psychiatry in the south west 10 years ago and hasn’t looked back.

Nicola has been involved in a number of projects spanning different areas such as introducing a physical formulary across a mental health trust, updating a training manual for pharmacists entering into psychiatric pharmacy and improving clinicians and patients access to resources for medication.

Recently she has become interested in the impact of ethnicity on mental health treatments and outcomes and is currently involved in looking at updating older research on mental health treatments across different ethnicities and is part of a working group to look at reducing restrictive interventions and improving early access to services to improve management of patients from all backgrounds.

Outside of work Nicola is a keen baker, often making cakes with her rather active toddler and loves to travel having taken 6 months out to circumnavigate south America in her early career and has had a number of trips to Africa.

Petra Brown qualified as a pharmacist in 1992 working initially as a resident pharmacist at Salford Royal hospital before moving to Withington Hospital in 1995 where she was asked to temporarily cover the mental health wards. It was immediately clear how much a pharmacist could benefit the quality of care and 27 years on she has moved Trusts and roles but never out of mental health. She has always been a member of UKPPG and CMHP enjoying the professional and personal support the organisation offers.

Petra is now Chief Pharmacist at Pennine Care NHS FT having been the Greater Manchester Mental Health Medicines Optimisation Strategic Pharmacist from 2017 to 2019 and Chief Pharmacist at Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust 2000-2017.

Petra has particularly enjoyed developing and expanding her pharmacy team and services working with other providers and commissioners to improve medicines optimisation locally and strategically. She has supported and published a range of research including managing the early introduction of medicines for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, improving mental health medication safety and the use of clozapine and second generation antipsychotics in schizophrenia. The current research portfolio is particularly focussed on medicines safety in mental health and prison healthcare in conjunction with Manchester University. Recent quality improvement projects include shared decision making, implementing NICE guidance, learning from prescribing errors, medicines reconciliation in prison services and improving our service users physical health monitoring.

Petra has three children, a very giddy dog and house in Austria which keep her active. She loves walking, skiing, swimming and speaking German with her extended family.

Deputy Chief Pharmacist and Head of Pharmacy for Secure Hospitals, 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!

After qualifying as a pharmacist, Kiran started her career in community pharmacy and then very swiftly moved to a large acute hospital in Liverpool as a basic grade pharmacist. Before committing to doing the general clinical diploma, Kiran decided to give mental health pharmacy a try, and agreed to cover a colleague’s maternity leave post for 6 months in a neighbouring mental health trust.

That was 20 years ago……and she never did go back to the acute trust; she loved the real MDT approach to patient-care and value her role provided to patients. So when offered a substantive post, she jumped at the chance to stay and establish herself as a mental health pharmacist. There, she gained a wide range of experience, covering inpatient services for older adults, adult acute, substance misuse and rehabilitation specialities. She completed both the psychiatric certificate and diploma at Aston University during that time and was fortunate to gain experience in and help develop education and training for patients, carers, other healthcare professionals, and participated in undergraduate and postgraduate psychiatric pharmacy teaching at John Moore’s University. She has been a UKPPG and CMHP member since 1997.

In 2004, a re-location “down south” took her to Berkshire and a job as lead clinical pharmacist (followed by deputy chief pharmacist) at the mental health trust there. Many challenges arose during this time; a trust merger with community health services that required significant change management responsibilities and the need to lead an expanding multidisciplinary clinical pharmacy service. It also allowed many opportunities to gain additional funding and grow her clinical pharmacy team, by initiating new pharmacist roles within CMHTs, perinatal, EIP and psychiatric liaison services, and working closely with the School of Pharmacy at Reading University where she lead the development of two specialist mental health teacher practitioner pharmacist roles.

Last year, whilst undertaking a leadership masters degree, Kiran was appointed as Chief Pharmacist at Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Although the challenges in her new post are quite different to those in her previous role, she continues to be an advocate for developing both clinical and leadership skills of her team members and believes in empowering and enabling all levels of staff to be caring, inclusive leaders in their own right.

Any spare time is taken up running around after her two young children, cooking, baking, cycling, singing (in the shower) and dancing (around her handbag!)

Helen began her pharmacy career at the beginning of 2007 after dropping out of her art and design undergrad. Desperate to find a job before she broke the news to her parents, she found a part time job as a trainee dispenser in a community pharmacy. As luck would have it, Helen found a new passion in pharmacy and spent seven years in community pharmacy progressing through the pharmacy technician qualifications. During this time she had some issues with her own mental health, and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder in 2009 sharpened her focus towards her patients struggling with similar diagnoses.

After qualifying and registering as a pharmacy technician in 2014, Helen made the switch to general practice and eagerly started on the BTEC Level 4 Pharmacy Clinical Services diploma to fill in the gaps in her knowledge. It was as part of this diploma that she undertook an audit to identify and review patients on the learning disability register who were prescribed antipsychotic medications. During this time she heard about and became interested in the work of members of CMHP, and joined as a member to aid her studies and indulge her personal interest in mental health pharmacy.

In August 2019 Helen changed sectors again, and began working as a Service Development Officer at PSNC. Here she assists in the creation, development, and support of community pharmacy services, and is eager to promote community pharmacy-based mental health services, allowing vulnerable patients access to support and relieving pressure from other areas of the NHS.

Helen’s free time is spent on her hobbies; arts and crafts, cooking and baking, dining out, cinema, and music. She is planning to start a Master’s degree in Public Health in January 2020.

After completing her MPharm degree at the University of Bath, Emily spent the next few years working as a hospital pharmacist at Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust where she rotated into a number of different specialties including A&E, surgery and GI whilst completing her clinical diploma at UCL.

During this time, Emily undertook a placement at South London and Maudsley NHS foundation trust, where her world was opened up to mental health as a speciality. She fell in love with the unpredictability of each day, the passion of her colleagues and the responsibility given to her to provide evidence based treatment options. Emily covered acute male, female and elderly MH wards before migrating to the role of lead pharmacist for community mental health teams. Within this role, she started a clinical pharmacy service, led a team of 6 pharmacists, as well as, set up a non-medical prescribing clinic where she practiced weekly. She will always be grateful to her colleagues in Guys and St Thomas and the Maudsley for the opportunity of working with awe-inspiring pharmacists at the forefront of their fields.

Emily has recently moved back to Wales for an exciting new role as Advanced Primary Care Pharmacist specialising in mental health at Cwm Taff Morgannwg University Health Board. Her aim is to improve the quality of care patients suffering with their mental health receive by improving access to support, information and smoother transfers between services.   Emily has just completed an MSc in Pharmacy Research at Kings College London which looked at the association between adherence to paliperidone long acting injection and relapse.

In her spare time, Emily is a keen runner, she enjoys cooking, hiking and exploring new places.

Chief Pharmacist, Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust (July 2018 – present)

Abiola has over 19 years’ experience as a qualified pharmacist with substantial experience in both clinical therapeutics and management. He has worked in various settings – acute hospitals, community and currently in mental health. He has experience in maximising the impact of medicines, improving patient outcomes by espousing the medicines optimisation mantra and managing pharmacy staff to provide high quality pharmaceutical services; he provides leadership around medicines management at a trust-wide level. He has a passion for his speciality and a burning ambition to positively influence both his speciality and the wider profession at all levels – local, regional and national level.

After completing his Pharmacy degree at Liverpool John Moores University, Abiola went on to complete a diploma in clinical pharmacy and has worked as a clinical pharmacist in various acute hospitals and in different specialities. He has has also worked in various positions in community pharmacy gaining valuable experience and supporting excellent patient care services.

He has a passion for patient care and mental health is a key interest. With this in mind, he completed the Certificate in Psychiatric Therapeutics from Aston University (Merit). He worked as an Advance Pharmacist in Medicines information where he set up a Medicines information department at RJ & AH NHS Foundation Trust. Further to this, he worked as a Lead clinical pharmacist in Mental health at CWP NHS Foundation Trust, where he was responsible for a locality and accountable for the delivery of clinical pharmacy services in this part of the Trust. He provided a clinical role to a number of wards, and he managed a number of staff in order to deliver the service. He held a number of trust-wide roles, such as Medicines management lead, and was an integral member of the Medicines Management Group.

Moving to a Deputy Chief Pharmacist role at Birmingham and Solihull MH NHS Foundation Trust, Abiola had responsibility for the day to day management of the pharmacy services to the Trust.  He worked with his management team to ensure they had the appropriate skill mix within the department that is commensurate to the workload and meet expected delivery of key performance indicators.

Abiola is currently the Chief Pharmacist at SHSC NHS Foundation, where he oversees the pharmacy department and has responsibility for medicines optimisation and management within the Trust.

He has taught core trainees on the MRCPsych course in the North West and in South Yorkshire.

Within mental health, he has a breath of experience working in eating disorders services, Psychiatric intensive care units (PICU), acute adult wards and also in dementia services. He is interested in leadership and has completed the Mary Seacole program in Healthcare Leadership. He has also completed and been awarded the Nye Bevan award in Executive Leadership

Abiola enjoys playing the guitar, and having a good game of scrabble. He is a qualified level one FA football coach and managed a youth football team for 6 years. He is currently on a sabbatical.

Professor Amanda Wheeler is a proud Kiwi who has enjoyed living and working in Australia since 2010. She is a registered pharmacist, a globally renowned leader in mental health, pharmacy practice and person-centred care. She has research expertise in community engagement, quality improvement, professional practice, workforce development and capacity building for over 20 years.

Professor Wheeler was awarded her PhD late in her professional career in 2009 whilst working full time and followed a non-traditional career path. She was founder and director of the highly successful Clinical Research and Resource Centre in a NZ public health service. Amanda is now Professor of Mental Health at the Menzies Health Institute Queensland, School of Pharmacy & Medical Sciences at Griffith University.

Her passion for health reform and equitable healthcare, especially regarding mental health and well-being, has been a key driver in her research. Prior to her academic career, Amanda worked as a pharmacist in hospital and community settings in NZ & the UK, where she lived for five years. These varied working environments stimulated her interest in the safe and appropriate use of medicines and facilitated her success in securing multiple, highly funded research projects. She has led a range of federally funded research projects that have contributed to improving health service provision and policy through legislative change and developing person-centred, goal-oriented medication management services to improve health outcomes and quality and safe use of medicines.

She is currently leading an RCT focusing on the physical health of consumers living with severe and persistent mental illness. In addition, she is a Chief Investigator on a 5-year NHMRC Partnership Project to test the feasibility of accurately diagnosing FASD in remote Indigenous primary care settings and is leading the co-design of the national roadmap for the ALIVE National Centre for Mental Health Research Translation.

Professor Wheeler has travelled extensively and is a bit of a ‘foodie’ and actively seeks opportunities to extend her knowledge – and her tastebuds!

Read more at Griffith Experts.

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.

Yogita Dawda is the Clinical Lead for Mental Health Pharmacy at Central & North West London NHS Foundation Trust and a credentialed CMHP member. She acts as a QNWA peer reviewer for the Royal College of Psychiatrists and is a panel member of professional experts for Rethink Mental Illness Charity.

Yogita is also a lecturer at Aston University for the independent prescribing course and external assessor on their Postgraduate Diploma in Psychiatric Pharmacy.

Yogita has had several publications in pharmacy journals. She was a member of the Department of Health Physical Health, Mental Health working group and co-developer of two resources to support mental health nurses take positive actions to improve patients’ physical health and reduce the unwanted variation highlighted in The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health.

Yogita has led on the implementation of ‘Point of care testing and physical health monitoring in clozapine clinics’ which was finalist in two national awards and presented at various national conferences. She has also led on the coproduction of a physical health monitoring booklet to support patients taking clozapine which was highly commended by MHRA.

Her current projects include supporting digital transformation and reducing the risk of preventable medicines-related readmissions.

Outside of work, Yogita enjoys skiing and running.

She can be found on Twitter @DawdaYogita

Orla qualified as a pharmacist in 1998, having completed her BPharm in Trinity college Dublin.  She spent several years working as a community pharmacist in Dublin and Melbourne, before moving to the UK in 2002 where she started working for Oxford Mental Health as a locum pharmacist.  She became quickly absorbed in the fascinating world of psychiatric pharmacy and has been working for Oxford Health since then.

During her career as a psychiatric pharmacist, Orla has worked on CAMHS, PICU, Adult, Forensic and Older Adult wards, learning from the wider multi-disciplinary team and a close team of pharmacy colleagues.  She completed the Aston diploma in 2007 and went on to achieve CMHP credentialing in 2008.

In 2009 she became the Lead Research Pharmacist and established a well-respected clinical trials team within her department.  She continues to work closely with researchers at the Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre and has helped to produce guidelines on managing patients with mental illness during the pandemic.  She also collaborates with researchers in the Bennett Institute who manage the Opensafely and Openprescribing databases and has undertaken research to explore prescribing trends of psychotropics.  She teaches undergraduate medical students and trainee psychiatrists in Oxford University’s Department of psychiatry and is a presenter on Psych 1 and an external assessor on the Dip Psych course at Aston.

Orla qualified as an independent prescriber in 2018 and worked as an NMP for several years with the local Early Intervention Service.  She has published a paper and presented lectures on the value of NMP pharmacists in managing mental illnesses.

Orla is currently working on a project to improve psychotropic prescribing in learning disability across her local Integrated Care System which has focussed her attention on how we specialist pharmacists can support our colleagues in primary care to deliver great care to our patients.   She is currently learning to be more skilled as a learning disabilities pharmacist.

Outside of working life, Orla enjoys a busy family life, with three children – four if you count the dog!   She loves running, yoga, hanging out in or on (SUP) the local river and generally anything that involves a drink and a chat.