We invited our newly credentialed members to give us some more information about their role and their experience of credentialing with the College.
Beryl Navti
I am the clinical lead pharmacist for CAMHS in NELFT (North East London Foundation Trust) and having been appointed as a consultant pharmacist, I am currently completing the RPS consultant pharmacist credentialing pathway.
My role is to develop clinical pharmacy services for child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), working closely with the wider MDT to promote safe prescribing, support medicines governance and advise on medicines optimisation for children with mental health needs.
I feel honoured to be a credentialed member of the College of Mental Health Pharmacy, and though the process of collecting evidence was time consuming and the viva was challenging, I have a great sense of achievement and look forward to contributing positively to mental health pharmacy practice.
Outside of work, I am involved in working with various charities contributing to community development projects in Africa.
Nicola Greenhalgh
I am the lead pharmacist for mental health at North East London NHS Foundation Trust, responsible for the pharmacy team providing services to all of the mental health inpatient units and representing pharmacy in a number of Trust wide groups and initiatives. I provide a lot of support for the development of pharmacists into mental health and am keen on ensuring that pharmacists in all settings have a basic understanding of mental health.
I am lucky to have joined the CMHP council to support the really great educational work that is being undertaken by the CMHP. I also have a keen interest in how ethnicity impacts on mental health outcomes and am involved in a number of initiatives to learn about and improve experiences of patients from different backgrounds. Having worked in mental health for ten years, I really should have credentialed a while ago. However, I think it felt overwhelming looking at the process. Once I started it really wasn’t as onerous as I thought it might have been and I feel privileged to have joined my peers who have credentialed before me.
Yogita Dawda
I am the Clinical Lead for Mental Health Pharmacy at the Central & North West London NHS Foundation Trust. I am also a lecturer at Aston University for the Independent Prescribing course and a QNWA peer reviewer for the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
I am passionate about improving physical health of those with a mental health condition and I was a member of the Department of Health Physical Health, Mental Health working group. My recent interests include reducing medicines related readmissions.
I would encourage others to consider undergoing credentialing as it provides confidence and reassurance of your level of practice.
Chris Todd
My role is senior clinical pharmacist at Devon Partnership NHS Trust. I have very recently moved to Devon to start this new role (for me) as the lead pharmacist for the forensic service at DPT.