Nine independent expert members (IEMs) have been appointed to the UK Pharmacy Professional Leadership Advisory Board.

The UK-wide advisory board was set up last year with the aim of supporting and enabling collaborative working between organisations representing pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in different settings.

The four UK chief pharmaceutical officers (CPhOs) then embarked on a process to recruit nine IEMs to join the board, which is now complete.

The appointments are:

  • Raymond Anderson (community pharmacist and director of Northern Pharmacies Ltd; associate consultant, Health and Social Care Leadership Centre, Belfast)
  • Laura Angus (chief pharmacy officer/director of pharmacy and medicines optimisation, NHS Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board
  • Rebecca Chamberlain (pharmacy technician and chair of the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) Accreditation and Recognition Panel)
  • Mildred Johnson (hospital chief pharmacist/clinical director of pharmacy and medicines optimisation, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust)
  • Dr Berwyn Owen (community pharmacist, Fferyllfa Penygroes Pharmacy, Caernarfon)
  • Professor Mahendra Patel (pharmacist and director of the Centre for Research Equity, University of Oxford)
  • Shilpa Shah (pharmacist and chief executive, Community Pharmacy North East London)
  • Panayiotis Sphikas (pharmacy technician and head of pharmacy operations, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust)
  • Ellen Williams (director of regional pharmacy training, Pharmacy Workforce Development South).

In an open letter to the UK pharmacy professions, the four UK CPhOs and Sir Hugh Taylor, independent chair of the UK Pharmacy Professional Leadership Advisory Board, said the IEMs would ‘play a pivotal role in shaping and supporting the board’s work’, and that the appointments would ‘ensure the board is broad, balanced and ensure appropriate diversity’.

The letter also stated that the IEMs had been appointed to the board through ‘an open recruitment’ and that an IEM for Scotland is also being recruited.

The UK Pharmacy Professional Leadership Advisory Board is made up of 19 members, including the Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK, British Oncology Pharmacy Association, British Pharmaceutical Students’ Association, College of Mental Health Pharmacy, Pharmacy Forum of Northern Ireland, Primary Care Pharmacy Association (PCPA), Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), UK Clinical Pharmacy Association and a representative from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges.

Last month, newly installed IEM Professor Patel told The Pharmacist that the group represented an opportunity for community pharmacy to have an ‘equal voice’ in ‘difficult conversations’ that set the direction of its future.

In December last year, James Davies, director of the RPS in England, emphasised the need for more transparency and information about the group and what it is seeking to do.