Pharmacist ambassadors feted at RPS Awards 2017

award winner 2017 gillian hawksworth

Gillian Hawksworth, former president of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) and chair of the Panel of Fellows, has received the Society’s Lifetime Achievement award.

Hawksworth was presented with the award during a ceremony held on the opening evening of the RPS annual conference. She was among twelve pharmacists, pharmaceutical scientists and students recognised at the ceremony for their contributions to the sector.

Presenting the Lifetime Achievement award, Ash Soni, president of the RPS, described Hawksworth as a “passionate and tireless advocate for the profession for decades”.

A member of the Society council between 1992 and 1998, and again from 1995 until 2005, Hawksworth was elected as President in 2003, serving for a year. She has also been a member of the RPS pharmaceutical science expert advisory panel since 2010.

Hawksworth began her career in 1974 as a community pharmacist. She opened her own pharmacy in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, in 1986, and continued to manage the business until 2002. She was an active member of the Huddersfield branch of the RPSGB, becoming the branch’s chair in 1990.

In the latter years of her community pharmacy career Hawksworth decided to move to academia, undertaking a part-time PhD while continuing to run her pharmacy premises.

Hawksworth completed her PhD in 1999, and later accepted a position as academic community pharmacist at the University of Bradford. She held the role from 2005 to 2009 before taking up a senior lecturer post at the University of Huddersfield. Now retired, Hawksworth remains a visiting fellow at the University.

“I’m not sure any other member of the RPS could demonstrate a commitment and involvement that is anywhere near that shown by Gill’s CV,” Soni told delegates at the ceremony. “The profession is reaping the rewards of Gill’s hard work now, with the growing recognition of the role of pharmacists”.

The Harrison Medal, awarded every second year to a mid-career scientist who has made an outstanding contribution to pharmaceutical science, was awarded to Professor Molly Stevens for her work on regenerative medicine, tissue engineering and nanotechnology.

A professor of biomedical materials and regenerative medicine at Imperial College London’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Stevens — who is also research director for biomedical material sciences at Imperial College — was in 2011, named on The Guardian’s list of the world’s top 100 most inspirational women, in part for her work with the biotech company RepRegen.

The Leadership in Pharmacy award, presented by Ann Page, chair of the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association, went to Ian Bates, professor of pharmacy education at the School of Pharmacy, University College London and education adviser to the RPS English Pharmacy Board.

The Northern Ireland Centre for Pharmacy Learning and Development (NICPLD) received the Society’s Excellence in Education Award for their “sustained record of innovation and excellence in developing the pharmacy workforce”.

The Excellence in Pharmaceutical Science prize went to Andrew Lewis, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford’s Target Discovery Institute. Lewis, who was unable to attend, has more than 25 years’ experience of innovation in product development, particularly in the use of biomedical polymer systems to create drug-device combination products.

Source: Royal Pharmaceutical Society

Among several new award categories for 2017 was Team of the Year, with the inaugural prize going to the Ealing GP Pharmacy Team for their “outstanding outcomes and innovative working within general practice” across Ealing, West London

Among several new award categories for 2017 was Team of the Year, with the inaugural prize going to the Ealing GP Pharmacy Team for their “outstanding outcomes and innovative working within general practice” across Ealing, West London. The team of pharmacists work within multidisciplinary teams across several general practices, care homes and community pharmacies in the Ealing area.

The Practice Research Award went to Sarah Slight, reader in pharmacy practice at Durham University and visiting research Scholar at Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. Slight’s research focuses on patient safety; she recently completed a large study looking at the prevalence and causes of prescribing errors in English GP surgeries.

Source: Royal Pharmaceutical Society

The Patient Champion award, another new category for 2017, was received by Ade Williams, superintendent pharmacist at Bedminster Pharmacy, a ‘Healthy Living Pharmacy’

Another new category for 2017, the Patient Champion award, was received by Ade Williams, superintendent pharmacist at Bedminster Pharmacy. Bedminster is a Healthy Living Pharmacy, and Williams has previously said that he hopes the pharmacy is seen as “an easily accessible NHS community outpost”.

The third, and final, new award category for 2017 — Innovation in Quality Improvement — went to Emily Rose-Parfitt, a rheumatology specialist pharmacist at North Bristol NHS Trust, for her work on improving services for rheumatology patients, making better use of resources, and developing a new rheumatology pathway, all of which saved the NHS £433,795 in the first 12 months of implementation.

Viral V Doshi, a consultant pharmacist and public health specialist for NHS Hillingdon Stop Smoking Service, won the Achievement in Local Engagement award.

The RPS Pre-registration Trainee of the Year award went to Zahra Abdul-Hussain, for her project to improve antibiotic stewardship in GP surgeries and nursing homes.

Finally, the RPS Student of the Year 2017 is Siew Fern Agnes Wong, currently undertaking her studies at the University of Bath and described by the Society as a “fantastic ambassador for the Bath MPharm student community”.

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Citation
The Pharmaceutical Journal, PJ, September 2017, Vol 299, 7905;299(7905):DOI:10.1211/PJ.2017.20203501

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