Head of School/Professor of Clinical Pharmacy

I am currently Head of the School of Pharmacy and Professor of Clinical Pharmacy. I have a background in hospital pharmacy practice and have held a range of academic posts at both the University of Sunderland and Durham University. I chair the Accreditation Team and the Board of Examiners at the General Pharmaceutical Council and have a longstanding interest in curriculum design and improvement within pharmacy education. I'm specifically interested in integrated curricula and how assessment strategies should be designed to appropriately assess pharmacy students ability to solve the complex clinical problems they will encounter in practise. My research interests primarily focus on the rational use of medicines and how prescribing decisions influence patient care. This currently extends into examining how medicines are discontinued when no longer appropriate and how clinical review of prescribed medicines can influence patient outcomes, including readmission to hospital. Adherence to prescribed medication is also of interest particularly in the context of how individual disease states and social backgrounds influence patients decisions to adhere to their treatments. I am also working on a number of projects examining the relationships between polypharmacy and frailty.