Education & Training Lead

Nicola Husain is a registered pharmacist specialising in paediatrics, genomics and education. She is the Education & Training Lead for both the South East Genomic Medicine Service Alliance (SE GMSA) and the Neonatal & Paediatric Pharmacy Group (NPPG). In these roles, Nicola oversees the development and delivery of teaching and training initiatives for clinical healthcare professionals across the NHS. Nicola has more than 15 years’ experience of patient-facing clinical practice in various paediatric specialties including neurology, metabolics, cardiology, respiratory, haematology, surgery and intensive care. Her work has focused on ensuring the quality and safety of evidence-based paediatric pharmaceutical care. Nicola is a qualified independent pharmacist prescriber, and has prescribed regularly as part of the paediatric acute pain team at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital (ELCH). Nicola has undertaken, and supervised, a number of clinical research and service improvement projects to improve standards and better understand medicines use. Her interest in genomics and personalised medicine was triggered by her involvement in the introduction of gene therapy and genetic targeted treatments for children with rare diseases. Nicola holds the position of Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at King’s College London (KCL) and was Programme Director for Postgraduate Pharmacy Practice programmes for 10 years. During this time, she coordinated the paediatric pharmacy team’s education and training programme at the ELCH and led on the Paediatric Pharmaceutical Care International Internship Programme and Masterclass, initiatives that are delivered collaboratively by KCL, ELCH and King’s College Hospital. She has also co-authored work examining structured assessments such as objective structured clinical examinations in pharmacy education. Nicola is a member of NPPG’s executive committee and contributes to national initiatives and collaborations to influence the safety and effectiveness of paediatric medicines use. She leads the organisation’s strategy for supporting the professional development of its membership, chairs the Education subgroup and is a member of the Research & Publications subgroup. As Education & Training Lead for the SE GMSA, Nicola’s work to support the integration of genomics into mainstream clinical pathways involves cross-organisational and multi-professional collaboration to facilitate workforce training and development. She sits on the NHSE Pharmacy Workforce Group for Genomics and has developed educational resources including an e-learning module on monogenic diabetes and pharmacogenomics guides for clinicians. Nicola has a strong interest in improving global standards of child health. She has previously worked for a non-governmental organisation in India supporting children with disabilities, worked on the pharmacy programme for the King’s Global Health Partnership in Sierra Leone and has volunteered with CHIVA Africa, a charity that supports the management of children with HIV in South Africa.