ROYAL PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Chief Technology Officer
- Member of the Executive Team
- CTO at the Royal Institute of British Architects
Previously CTO at the Royal Institute of British Architects, Avril has had a career in various Technology roles, as you might expect from someone who once wrote a dissertation asking When do we become cyborgs? which explored technology's impact on humans.
Alongside her passion for technology, Avril is an award-winning technology entrepreneur, podcast host and founder of a cancer charity. She is the author of several books, including Tech Treats & Treasures, a collection of wisdom and stories from over 80 technology leaders.
Job Titles:
- Director
- PHP Product Director
Dan joined Pharmaceutical Press, the publishing division of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, as Product Director in 2021.
Dan has worked in professional publishing for over 15 years, mostly in product development. He most recently worked for LexisNexis, the legal, tax, and business information arm of RELX. There he held a number of roles, collaborating with remote development teams, as well as setting up a local development Tech Hub for the business in the UK.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director for Wales
- Well Pharmacy As a Pharmacy Branch Manager
Elen was promoted to the Director for Wales role in 2019, after joining the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in 2014.
Prior to this, she was the RPS Policy and Practice Lead in Wales for five years, leading on various Great Britain and Wales-specific policies, including pharmacy's role in supporting care home resident and palliative care residents.
In 2019 she was the project manager and lead author of the ten-year plan for pharmacy in Wales, Pharmacy: Delivering a Healthier Wales.
Elen has worked at Well Pharmacy as a pharmacy branch manager, teacher practitioner and in a UK clinical governance role. She has also lectured at Cardiff University on a part-time basis since 2010, where she attained a fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.
She led the development of Welsh language opportunities for Welsh-speaking pharmacy students at the university, to ensure they are confident and competent to consult with patients bi-lingually.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director
- Associate Director for Education and Professional Development
- Trustee at Alcohol Change UK
Helen leads the education and professional development function of the RPS, supporting members to advance and achieve excellence in their careers.
Helen studied pharmacy at the University of Bath. She is a community pharmacist by background, and managed several pharmacies across central London before joining the National Pharmacy Association information team where she was responsible for creating key resources for community pharmacy.
She joined the RPS in 2010 and has held various leadership roles within the organisation, overseeing the development of integral services and resources, including the professional support service, the RPS library, the RPS Faculty, our foundation trainee programme, mentoring, and the E-portfolio.
Helen is a Trustee at Alcohol Change UK and is a member of the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association's Quality Assurance Panel. She also actively contributes to the quality improvement of healthcare research. She is a member of a Research Ethics Committee with the Health Research Authority and is a peer reviewer for two international scholarly journals and Pharmacy Research UK.
She is passionate about workforce development and strives to improve access to high-quality, innovative, learning opportunities for the profession.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director for England
Contact James about how you want the RPS to support, lead, and advocate for the pharmacy profession in England.
James has worked as a pharmacist in research, community, and hospital practice.
He graduated from the University of Bath in pharmacy, undertook his pre-registration training at Guys and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, and successfully joined the pharmaceutical register.
He was also president of the British Pharmaceutical Students' Association during this time.
James worked as a hospital pharmacist in Bristol NHS Trust, before joining UCL School of Pharmacy to pursue pharmacy research, being part of the national team that evaluated the New Medicines Service in community pharmacy. His PhD thesis focussed on the future role of community pharmacy, and how future business and professional models of community pharmacy practice are likely to be structured.
With a wide variety of interests, James' published work covers areas such as cardiovascular risk testing in pharmacies, the role of tele-pharmacy in delivering patient care, effects of automation and electronic transfer of prescriptions on safety of medicines, and student views on future pharmacy practice.
He was recently Chief Operating Officer for a health technology start-up, supporting the expansion and development of the company across Europe. Prior to this, he held a variety of policy roles for pharmacy organisations.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Associate Director
- Associate Director for Assessment and Credentialing
Joseph leads on the RPS assessment and credentialing function, including curriculum development, as part of the Education & Professional Development directorate.
Joseph is an educationalist who joined the RPS in 2019 as Head of Assessment & Credentialing, having previously held Head of Assessment roles at the College of Optometrists and Federation of Royal Colleges of Physicians. He has expertise in the development and delivery of curricula and high-stakes assessment programmes, and is passionate about the collaborative development of post-registration educational infrastructure to support professional advancement and improved patient care.
In addition to his substantive position at the RPS, Joseph holds a number of additional roles within assessment. He has worked for over a decade as a senior examiner for GCSE French, is an independent member on the Qualifications and Assessment Committee for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and is an advisor to the General Medical Council for the Applied Knowledge Test of the Medical Licensing Assessment.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Executive Team
- BNF Director
- Managing Director Pharmaceutical Press
- Managing Director Publishing / Deputy CEO
Karen Baxter studied pharmacy at De Montfort University, Leicester. After a pre-registration year, she became a resident pharmacist in Derby, completing a diploma in Clinical Pharmacy and an MSc with a focus on adverse drug reactions in patients taking off-label immunosuppressants.
After a variety of clinical roles, education and training roles and a period working on the postgraduate pharmacy programme at the University of Derby, Karen moved into publishing, working first on Stockley's Drug Interactions before moving to manage the programme of major reference works published by Pharmaceutical Press, the publishing division of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
More recently, as BNF Director, Karen has overseen the transformation of the BNF Publications, recreating their data structures, content management systems and content creation processes.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Content Director
Kate's clinical background is in hospital pharmacy practice - knowledge that she now uses in a publishing environment.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director for Scotland
- Director for Scotland / Professor Parastou Donyai / Chief Scientist
Laura Wilson went to Strathclyde University and did her pre-reg in community pharmacy.
Starting work at Crosshouse Hospital in Ayrshire, she then spent 14 years as a pharmacy manager for Morrisons in Kilmarnock.
Laura was one of the first pharmacists to qualify as a prescriber, within her clinical area of psychiatry. After setting up prescribing clinics in mental health within an addiction service, she ran a clinic from the pharmacy consultation room.
She also became an RPS spokesperson, promoting the role of pharmacy in the media and at political conferences.
Laura was one of the first pharmacists to qualify as a prescriber, within her clinical area of psychiatry. After setting up prescribing clinics in mental health within an addiction service, she ran a clinic from the pharmacy consultation room.
She also became an RPS spokesperson, promoting the role of pharmacy in the media and at political conferences.
After moving to Addiction services within NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, she led a project to change how pharmacies are paid for treating patients receiving opiate substitution therapy, leading to a more person-centred model. She was also seconded to Strathclyde University as a teacher practitioner for two years.
Laura is interested in drug misuse and addiction, mental health and education, and training. After taking the role of Policy and Practice Lead at RPS, one of the first policies she wrote was Improving care, reducing harm and preventing death in People Who Use Drugs: Pharmacy's role.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Associate Director
- Associate Director for Pharmacy and Membership Experience
Neal leads the support, digital marketing and membership function within the Education and Membership directorate.
After starting his career in community pharmacy, Neal joined the RPS from the National Pharmacy Association, where he first managed NHS engagement and latterly headed up communications.
Following his appointment as RPS Head of Corporate Communications, Neal was the organisations main spokesperson, regularly appearing on the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and digital media outlets. More recently, Neal has worked to implement a new brand for RPS and developed an Insight lead communications and digital marketing team.
Neal remains a registered pharmacist and is Trustee of the charity the Association of Young People's Health.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Commercial Director, Pharmaceutical Press
Job Titles:
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer
- Member of the Executive Team
- Pharmacist
Paul Bennett is a Pharmacist, qualifying from the University of Bradford in 1984. He joined the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in his current position in July 2017.
Immediately prior to this he was Chief Officer at the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Local Pharmaceutical Committee.
Paul was Professional Standards Director and Superintendent Pharmacist at Boots UK from 2008 to 2013. Prior to that he held Executive Director roles and Superintendent Pharmacist positions at E Moss Ltd and at Safeway Stores Plc. where he was responsible for strategic development of the pharmacy business through both acquisition and organic growth.
He has worked closely with NHS commissioners and with the pharmaceutical industry during his career as well as leading on a number of non-healthcare related initiatives in the retail environment.
Paul has also been an active participant within several pharmacy leadership bodies. In 2007, he became Chair of the first RPS English Pharmacy Board, and in 2008 took up the Chair of the National Pharmacy Association. He was Non-Executive Chair of Pharmacy Voice, the umbrella organisation for community pharmacy trade associations in the UK, and served on a number of subcommittees as a long standing member of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC), which represents community pharmacy contractors across England.
Paul was a Director of the Company Chemists Association for sixteen years. He was made a Fellow of the RPS in 2012.
Job Titles:
- Vice Chair of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Chief Operating Officer
- Member of the Executive Team
Rick Russell has spent over 25 years working in professional publishing for organisations including LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters and Euromoney PLC among others.
His most recent role was as Chief Operating Officer of a technology-based start-up headquartered in Singapore with multiple offices around the world. He rebuilt the product, technology and customer-facing functions to ensure the appropriate product-market fit whilst preparing the business for faster growth through institutional funding and eventual sale.
Rick has previously held three Managing Director roles within different publishing businesses with a specialist focus on business and technology transformation developing accelerated revenue growth at higher profitability. These roles have ranged from start-up to very mature and turn-around businesses which have required re-energising with a sharper focus on both product and service excellence to rebuild brand authority and increase global market presence.
Rick has always had a passion for how people, processes and technology can work together to transform an organisation's efficiency and effectiveness whilst maintaining a sharp eye on the bottom line of the business.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Membership Committee
Job Titles:
- Director
- Scientist
- Pharmaceutical Journal Publisher
- Publisher of the Pharmaceutical Journal
Tony Scully is a scientist by background, beginning his career in medical diagnostics, working on immunoassays to detect exposure to infectious diseases as well as organ biomarkers.
While reading for a Masters in science journalism, Tony got his big break as a cub reporter for the journal Nature, writing news and news features.
After a short stint managing peer-reviewed journals for Future Medicine, Tony returned to Nature and held a variety of editing roles as well as developing new editorial products and services as part of Nature's publishing team. Tony joined The Pharmaceutical Journal in 2014, leading the successful implementation digital-first editorial strategy.
Tony has been Publisher since 2016; he is now responsible for the journals, magazine and academic books programmes at the RPS. Tony is always looking to develop new, better ways of working that support the creation of quality content.
Yvonne Dennington, Business Manager
Contact Yvonne with your general enquiries about RPS England and the English Pharmacy Board.
Yvonne.Dennington@rpharms.com