RPS Conference 2024 Speakers

Margaret’s varied career started with her degree from Cardiff University, returning in 2013 as Director of the Wales Centre for Pharmacy Professional Education. Her career includes patient facing primary and community care positions to middle management through to strategic and political leadership. 

Margaret was recognised for her work with a fellowship from the RPS in 2015. In 2018 she was awarded an honorary professorship at Cardiff University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Margaret was appointed as HEIW Pharmacy Dean in 2018, when Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) was established as a special health authority within NHS Wales.

Professor Liz Breen is the current Director of the Digital Health Enterprise Zone, an innovation facility based at the University of Bradford. She is also Professor of Health Service Operations based in the School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences. 

Liz is a Wolfson Centre for Applied Health Research Fellow and an Affiliate member of the NIHR Yorkshire & Humber Patient Safety Research Centre. Liz’s research focuses on improvement and sustainability in service supply chains with a specific interest in pharmaceutical supply chains. Her work aims to better understand the complexity of supply chain systems and learnings within and between supply chains. Projects focusing directly on the pharmaceutical supply chain explore areas such as medicines shortages, medicines optimisation and waste management, supply chain risk and patient safety. 

Liz has also undertaken extensive media engagement discussing the creation and deployment of Covid-19 vaccines within the UK and globally. This work has been cited in Europe, Asia, Africa, North America and South America and Australia and in key media outlets such as The Guardian, Time Magazine and Forbes.

Sharon Brennan is Director of Policy and External Affairs at National Voices. Prior to joining she was the Senior Policy Manager at the Taskforce for Lung Health developing their integrated care strategy, and Taskforce priorities for the year ahead. 

Previously she worked as the Health and Integration Policy Manager at Alzheimer’s Society, responsible for the strategic and operational direction of health policy at the charity. Before moving into the charity policy sector in 2021, Sharon was an award-winning senior correspondent at the Health Service Journal leading on integration, integrated care systems, commissioning and social care reform. She also acts as an advisor to the Department of Transport on the accessibility of UK travel.

Professor Ryan Donnelly holds the Chair in Pharmaceutical Technology at the School of Pharmacy, Queen’s University Belfast, where he is Director of Research. 

A registered pharmacist, his research is centred on design and characterisation of advanced polymeric drug delivery systems for transdermal and intradermal drug delivery, with a strong emphasis on improving patient outcomes. 

He is currently developing a range of novel microneedle technologies through independent research, but also in collaboration with several major pharmaceutical companies. His work has attracted more than £30 million in funding and he has authored over 1000 peer-reviewed publications, including 11 patent applications, 7 textbooks, 28 book chapters and approximately 360 full papers. 

He leads a personal research group of approximately 50 people from 15 different countries and has been an invited speaker at numerous national and international conferences. Professor Donnelly is Europe/Africa Editor of Drug Delivery & Translational Research. 

In 2024, he has won the International Association for Pharmaceutical Technology (APV) Research Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Pharmaceutical Sciences, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Harrison Medal and the Kydonieus Foundation Transdermal Delivery Award.

Richard Cattell is passionate about supporting patients and the pharmacy and wider healthcare team in getting the best from medicines, reducing harm and improving care. 

His role primarily focusses on providing senior professional leadership at a national level across the NHS in England working closely with the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer. He has specific responsibility for the delivery of the pharmacy and medicines aspects of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, the Medicines Value Programme and Medicines Safety Improvement Programme. 

He is also focussed on the development of inclusive senior pharmacy leadership across the NHS. Prior to this role, Richard has been a hospital chief pharmacist and chief operating officer during his career.

Dr Sarah Carter is the Chief Executive Officer of UKCPA. Her background is in health psychology, and she has a broad interest in health and wellbeing. She has worked in the area of pharmacy since 2001.

Mark Dayan is Brexit Programme Lead at the Nuffield Trust, working on the implications of leaving the European Union and of trade agreements for the NHS, life sciences and social care. His publications include How will Brexit affect the UK's response to coronavirus? and getting a Brexit deal that works for the NHS. 

Mark has also published work on health care in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and on legislation. He leads the Nuffield Trust's engagement with political stakeholders as Head of Public Affairs.

Andrew has been the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for Wales since 2016. Prior to his appointment he was principal pharmacist in pharmaceutical public health at Public Health Wales NHS Trust and was previously a pharmaceutical adviser in the NHS in Wales and England, a postgraduate education tutor, GP practice and community pharmacist. 

He was made a fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in 2018 and was awarded an OBE for services to the UK’s pandemic response in 2022. Andrew is a honorary lecturer at Cardiff University with research interests including how the expanding role of community pharmacists impacts on population health.

Mark studied and obtained my Bachelor of Pharmacy from Kings’ College, London He registered as a pharmacist following my pre-registration year split equally between a pharmaceutical industry and hospital placement. 

His career of 36 years to date has included working in community pharmacy, hospital pharmacy, regional and national level roles with a focus on the impact of patient centric care on medicines procurement and logistics. After studying, qualifying, and working in England he returned to his home country of Wales and has spent the last 26 years working for NHS Wales. With the last 8 years as National Procurement Lead Pharmacist for Wales and latterly as the Assistant Director for Medicines Procurement and Optimisation as part of NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership Pharmacy Division with responsibility to ensure value from the NHS Medicines Bill in Wales; circa (£1b). 

The health system structure in Wales has moved from a commissioning base to an integrated patient focus and experience service with the emphasis on care closer to home and patient outcomes. One of his key roles and responsibilities is to provide assurance on medicines supply and their value to the Welsh NHS and Welsh Government. While working in partnership with all suppliers to provide their patients with the best possible experience and clinical outcomes.

Dr Rick Greville – Rick is an ABPI Director with responsibility for Wales and the Distribution & Supply Chain. He was initially appointed to the post of Director of ABPI Cymru Wales in May 2003 after serving an apprenticeship of 15 years in a wide range of managerial and marketing roles within the pharmaceutical industry. 

Since April 2014 Richard has combined his continuing ABPI responsibility for Wales with that for the UK Distribution and Supply Chain, including homecare, the Falsified Medicines Directive and supply chain shortages. 

Over recent times he has developed ABPI policy in response to Brexit, Covid-19 and the Ukrainian war. He was a founding Director of SecurMed UK, the UK (NI) medicines verification organisation, and has also represented the industry on several Governmental Advisory Groups. A fluent Welsh speaker, he was born in West Wales and now lives in the outskirts of Cardiff.

Professor Guirguis is an accomplished pharmacist independent prescriber and renowned expert in substance misuse. She holds a PhD in Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) detection, has made significant contributions to the field of pharmacy, to drug policy, and her ground-breaking research has earned her recognition as the 2014 JPAG Geoffrey Phillips award winner. 

Dr Guirguis served as the Principal Investigator for the first Home Office-licensed Pharmacist-led drug checking service in the UK. In 2020, Dr Guirguis was nominated by the RPS as a ‘woman to watch’. As the MPharm Programme Director at Swansea University, Dr Guirguis has demonstrated her commitment to advancing pharmaceutical science and research. 

She is the Chair of the RPS Science and Research Committee which solidifies her position as a recognised global expert in the field of pharmacy.

Cathy Harrison is the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for Northern Ireland, working at the Department of Health. In this role Cathy is the head of the pharmacy profession in Northern Ireland and the most senior professional advisor to the Minister of Health on pharmaceutical and medicines issues.

Building on a career in Community Pharmacy, Clare has held management roles in a range of NHS primary and community care settings. In her role as Strategic Health Authority Pharmaceutical Adviser, she led successful regional QIPP and medication safety programmes both of which gained national recognition, including a Gold NHS Innovation Challenge Prize in 2012, and led to Clare taking on the role of National Lead for the Medicines use and Procurement QIPP Programme for the Department of Health. As the first Deputy Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for NHS England, Clare led the Medicines Optimisation programme and delivered the first national medicines optimisation dashboard as well as chairing a number of national committees such as the Medicines Clinical Reference Group and the national Controlled Drugs forum. Clare’s current portfolio includes Clinical Lead for Medicines Optimisation at Wessex Academic Health Science Network where she led the publication of the first national set of polypharmacy prescribing comparators in England winner of the HSJ Patient safety award in 2019. She has led three national AHSN programmes - The first spread the medication safety programme PINCER. This resulted in over 13,000 fewer patients at risk from harm from clinically significant medication errors. The second was the Transfer of Care Around Medicines (TCAM) programme which saw over 60 trusts make over 100,000 referrals to community pharmacies and was instrumental in the development of the national Discharge Medicines Service. Clare is currently the Clinical Lead for the Health Innovation Network Polypharmacy Programme. A career-long member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Clare was chair and lead author of the RPS Polypharmacy Guidance published in February 2019. In June 2023, Clare was appointed to Co-Chair the RCGP/ RPS development of the repeat prescribing toolkit as part of the National Overprescribing Review recommendations. Clare is a coach and mentor to those in, or aspiring to, leadership roles in healthcare. Special interests include polypharmacy, medicines-related data, measurement for improvement, women in leadership and patient safety. In 2014, Clare was recognised by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and designated an RPS Fellow. In the same year, Clare was successful in becoming a Faculty Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical society.

Robert is a Liver Surgeon and Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Liverpool. An NIHR funded researcher, he is the Royal College of Surgeons & Bowel Cancer UK metastatic colorectal cancer research lead for the United Kingdom. 

He is the UK Chief Investigator for BNT-122, the UK’s first personalised mRNA cancer vaccine study looking at adjuvant vaccine treatment in resected colorectal cancer. He has designed and delivered numerous phase 2 & 3 studies, incorporating novel trial designs and approaches to ensure rapid recruitment and leverage the inherent advantages the networked UK healthcare system provides.

Jessica Keen is the Pharmacy Lead at the NHS NorthWest Genomic Medicines Service Alliance, working to embed genomic medicine into routine clinical pathways and ensure equity of access to genomic testing and treatments for patients. 

She has particular interest in the role of pharmacy teams and the wider workforce in the implementation of pharmacogenomics in the NHS. She is the pharmacy lead for the PROGRESS programme (Delivering Pharmacogenetics for the NHS) and part of the NHSE Network of Excellence in Pharmacogenomics and Medicines Optimisation. Her background is as an oncology pharmacist prescriber, specialising in Upper GI cancers and electronic prescribing. 

As a prescriber she has seen the benefit of genomics to inform treatment from diagnosis through to stratification and medicines optimisation. She is a member of the BOPA Genomics Special Interest Group. Having completed an MSc in Genomic Medicine, she is now a Pre-doctoral Research Fellow funded by the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Greater Manchester, focussing on the implementation of pharmacogenomics in cancer.

Cara Mackenzie is currently Head of Pharmacy within NHS Fife, looking after Primary Care and Community Pharmacy. 

She has recently completed the NHS Education for Scotland Scottish Clinical Leadership Fellowship, during which she undertook work surrounding Clinical Supervision in conjunction with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. 

She is passionate about innovative ways of working to improve patient care and safety across the health service, with solid educational provision within pharmacy being a core component to this.

Andy began his law enforcement career in the early 1980s, investigating fraud against the unemployment benefit system. At the end of the decade, he joined HM Customs and Excise and was soon selected to join the Department’s elite and globally respected Investigation Division as a specialist investigator. In this role, Andy led complex criminal investigations into serious and organised international drug trafficking and fraud. 

Following a spell on secondment to National Police Training as a covert surveillance techniques instructor, Andy returned to operational work as Head of Intelligence at the Serious Fraud Office. Here, his unit was responsible for understanding, identifying, and countering serious fraud, bribery, and corruption in major corporations. 

His next move was to the National Crime Agency where he led efforts to tackle serious child sexual exploitation and abuse. In 2015, Andy was appointed to the Food Standards Agency to set up the National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) to tackle the newly identified criminal threat from serious fraud within global food supply chains. 

Since early 2020 Andy has been the head of the Criminal Enforcement Unit at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which provides the UK response to the illegal trade in falsified and substandard medicines and medical devices.

Eithne currently works as a Principal Pharmacist in the Medicine Supply Team in the Department of Health and Social Care. Following a Master of Pharmacy degree from the University of Brighton, Eithne worked as a clinical pharmacist in an NHS hospital, completing her Postgraduate Diploma at UCL. Eithne then worked as a specialist Medicine Information, Safety and Governance pharmacist before joining the Department.

Emeka is the President of the British Pharmaceutical Students’ Association (BPSA) 2024/2025. Alongside his role, he is a fourth-year pharmacy student at the University of East Anglia. He aims to ensure the thoughts and feelings of pharmacy students and foundation trainees are represented on all scales of our profession. He is passionate about ensuring there are no limits to the success of a pharmacy student and that the members are provided with a platform to express their opinions on concerns close to their heart.

Caroline Parker, FFRPS, FRPharmS, FCMHP is also a Lead Pharmacist for Community Mental Health Teams at Gloucestershire Health & Care NHS Foundation Trust. 

Her clinical role includes working as a member of a psychiatric intensive care unit team and in community mental health teams. She is a qualified independent non-medical prescriber. Prior to moving to Gloucestershire, she was the Consultant Pharmacist for Adult Mental Health in Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (2007-2020). 

She worked as a specialist mental health pharmacist across a wide range of psychiatric services delivering direct patient care in several central London hospitals. She served on the National Association of Psychiatric Intensive Care Units (NAPICU) executive committee between 2008-2019 mostly as the Director of Operations. 

She is a Fellow of the College of Mental Health Pharmacy (CMHP), an accredited Faculty Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, a Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, and is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Psychiatric Intensive Care.

Susan Roberts is Associate Director and Deputy Dean for pharmacy at NHS Education for Scotland (NES). Her NES portfolio includes workforce transformation, post registration pharmacist education from post registration foundation to consultant level as well as pharmacy technician and pharmacy support worker education.

Susan has worked clinically in surgical, critical care and antimicrobial stewardship and led the development of patient facing services in all these areas. This included the pioneering introduction of pharmacy technicians in patient facing roles, 7-day working in hospitals and orthopaedic antimicrobial multidisciplinary care reviews. Much of her career has been in a senior clinical leader role in NHS Boards in Scotland including an interim Director of Pharmacy. 

During Covid-19 pandemic Susan took on the role of the Chief Pharmacist at the only Scottish Nightingale Hospital, NHS Louisa Jordan, and delivered a pharmacy service within 2 weeks. Joining NES in 2019, her achievements so far have included the strategic leadership of the successful introduction of a post -registration foundation programme including independent prescribing, introduction of advanced and consultant pharmacist credentialing to Scotland, pivotal role in the successful bid for Scottish Government monies to support mental health workforce, development of a national funded pre-registration pharmacy technicians’ scheme and development of the pharmacy fellowship programme. 

Her research portfolio includes clinical pharmacy prioritisation, Parkinson’s disease, Education for Pharmacy Leadership, Antimicrobial Stewardship and more recently a research collaborator for several studies focusing on pharmacy workforce development. 

Susan is a Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) and chair of the RPS Advanced Practice Advisory Panel. Susan is passionate about the transformational development of pharmacy people, and believes this is the key to pharmacy’s role in the reform of health and care.

As the BGMA’s CEO, Mark represents the companies supplying four out of five NHS medicines. Earlier in his career, he was the founding Managing Director of the government’s Office for Clinical Research Infrastructure – whose purview included DHSC’s £0.6 billion/year investment in NHS R&D centres. 

Mark served on the Chief Medical Officer for England’s board for clinical research with a £1.1bn/year budget, including contributing to the Prime Minister’s life sciences strategy. Mark also co-founded Medicines Discovery Catapult after securing £55m of investment, and he was previously an executive at Roche. 

Mark is a graduate of QMUL and Oxford’s Saïd Business School. He has undertaken a Policy Fellowship at Cambridge University and the Leading Economic Growth programme at Harvard.

Dr Justine Scanlan is Head of the NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service (SPS) and chair of the joint DHSC and NHSE Medicines Shortages Response Group (MSRG). 

Through her leadership of the NHS SPS, the service played a pivotal role in the recent COVID -19 pandemic, overseeing both the allocation and distribution of medicines to the NHS and providing the professional expertise to ensure the successful deployment of the COVID-19 vaccination programme. 

Justine is an experienced pharmacist with a successful track record in leading and delivering new developments in pharmacy services; nationally and in NHS hospitals.

Sion is a hospital pharmacist researcher, and his methodological expertise is the application of behavioural science to develop and evaluate medicines optimisation interventions. He completed his MPharm at the School of Pharmacy, University of East Anglia in 2015 and began his clinical career at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. 

He returned to the University of East Anglia in 2016 to complete an NHS-funded PhD in behavioural science in which he developed a ‘practitioner behaviour change intervention for deprescribing in the hospital setting’. 

His deprescribing intervention is being tested in an NIHR Programme Grant for Applied Research across 24 hospitals and 22,000 patients in England. After completing a series of postdoctoral positions and a Lectureship at the University of East Anglia, he joined the University of Leicester in 2021 as a Lecturer in Behavioural Medicine and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2024. Sion continues to practice part time at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Sukhy Somal has had a variety of roles these have included managing large teams, owning two successful pharmacies, training, providing governance, writing policies and consulting for care organisations. Her latest role as the Head of Community Pharmacy Clinical Services for Black Country ICB brings all of her previously acquired skills into one. She is a keen reader and enjoys watching films in her spare time.

William Swain is an award-winning independent prescribing pharmacist with nearly 20 years of experience across multiple sectors. 

As Associate Director for Clinical Education at UCL School of Pharmacy, William co-developed the UCL Clinically Enhanced Pharmacist Independent Prescribing course. William is currently working as part of a team managing the South East London ICS prescribing integration project, which explores prescribing training for foundation trainee pharmacists.

Until he retired in 2023 Bruce was Deputy Chief Pharmaceutical Officer at NHS England, where he had particular responsibility for intermediate and primary care. Bruce chaired the Medicines Shortage Response group and the Independent Prescribing Pathfinder Steering Group as well as the Pharmacy Integration Fund Clinical Reference Group. 

Prior to that post Bruce was Deputy Director of Patient Safety and has worked in most pharmacy sectors including primary and secondary care as well as academia.

David Webb is the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for England. He is Head of the Pharmacy Professions in England and the principal advisor on pharmacy and medicines use in the NHS, which includes supporting the Department of Health and Social Care.  

David started this role in February 2022, having previously been Chief Pharmacist and Clinical Director for Pharmacy and Medicines Optimisation at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust in London. 

He registered as a pharmacist in 1986 and has been the regional chief pharmacist for London, director of regional specialist pharmacy services for London, East and Southeast England, and also led the review of specialist pharmacy services for England in 2014. 

David has held a number of academic appointments at University College London’s School of Pharmacy, including that of visiting professor, and is a Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.