Congratulations to Professor Stephen Bazire, Dr Ian Maidment, Claire Nowak, and Rachel Walsh, who all successfully recredentialed with the College towards the end of 2017. Recredentialing with us reaffirms their expertise in the field of mental health pharmacy.
This cohort of members going through recredentialing, gives a flavour of the variety of roles that specalist mental health pharmacists undertake:
Professor Stephen Bazire is a Director of Mistura Enterprise Ltd® (Choice and Medication©) and Mistura Informatics Ltd® (MaPPs 2©). He is also an Honorary Professor at the School of Pharmacy, University of East Anglia.
When asked what he finds most rewarding about his role, Steve says that it is knowing that he continues to make a difference. He says: “Recently I went to Australia and New Zealand and had a fab time with people who knew me/us and really appreciated what we can do through C&M [Choice and Medication] to help them.” He was interviewed during this visit and can be heard in this podcast from about 5 minutes in: https://www.purplepenpodcast.com/home/2017/11/18/ppp036-live-from-shpa-mm2017-day-2 .
CMHP Assistant Registrar Roz Gittins* – who oversaw the recredentialing process - commented that Steve’s continued work with the Psychotropic Drug Directory was particularly impressive.
Dr Ian Maidment is Senior Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacy in the School of Life and Health Sciences at Aston University.
During the recredentialing process, Roz highlighted Ian’s work in developing the Aston University Psychiatric pharmacy programme and securing NIHR funding as being especially noteworthy. For Ian, being credentialed by the College is a valuable recognition of the importance of his research and education by the College.
When asked what he finds rewarding in his role as a Lecturer, he says: “Seeing pharmacists develop during the programme and from my research working out how we can support older people with medication management.”
For more information about Dr Maidment’s MEMORABLE study check the following link: https://systematicreviewsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13643-017-0528-1
He has also recently written a short article for The Conversation on the challenges of medication management in older people: https://theconversation.com/medication-nation-new-research-shows-nearly-half-of-all-older-people-now-taking-at-least-five-medicines-84879
His Twitter account is @maidment_dr
Claire Nowak is Lead Pharmacist – Medicines Safety in the Medicines Safety Team at Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust.
When asked what she finds rewarding in her role, she says it is the opportunity to work with pharmacists who work outside of mental health services. She explains: “This allows me to raise the profile of the issues faced by people with mental health issues in other healthcare settings, meaning that I now have an opportunity to impact on the experience of those with mental health issues across the wider region.”
The expertise she brings to her current role stood out for Assistant Registrar Roz, who says: “Claire’s medicines safety work was particularly notable.”
Claire gives us insight into why credentialing is highly valued by our members, saying “the credentialing process means that the standard and quality of my work has been reviewed by my peers, peers who I look up to and have inspired me in my career to date. To be credentialed in this way makes me proud of my achievements, and gives me confidence in myself and my knowledge and skills.”
Rachel Walsh recently started a new role at South Staffordshire and Shropshire NHS Foundation Trust.
For Rachel, being credentialed by the College means that she can have confidence that she meets the high standards of clinical practice in mental health. She says: “It demonstrates to my colleagues an ongoing level of dedication and commitment to mental health and the care of service users.”
Rachel’s work supporting the development of more junior Pharmacist colleagues was a key strength identified by Roz when she reviewed Rachel’s recredentialing portfolio. This reflects an aspect of Rachel’s role that she says she finds rewarding: “motivating and mentoring pharmacy colleagues in developing and applying their specialist clinical skills”.
Further information about credentialing
Credentialing is our process for assessing members' knowledge and experience; it demonstrates that they are experts in the field of mental health pharmacy. Credentialed members are full members of the College and can carry the post-nominals MCMHP. Members are required to recredential every five years, showing that they have maintained their commitment to continuing professional development and expert levels of practice.
Please also see:
*Roz Gittins was Assistant Registrar at the time these members went through recredentialing. She has since been appointed Registrar of the College.
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