Wendy Clark

Biography

I have worked as a member of the postgraduate academic team at Keele University, across a range of our postgraduate courses, for over 20 years! I have responsibility for updating and further developing our on-line distance learning modules for our Clinical Pharmacy Practice Diploma Programme. I am taking the lead on developing this course internationally. I also provide educational support to the MSc programme and Independent Prescribing course.

I have a broad range of experience from working:

• as a clinical directorate pharmacist in a large teaching hospital
• within regional medicine information centres
• with GPs at a regional level to produce evidence based advice on the prescribing of new drugs
• within primary care as a PCT practice based pharmacist
• as part of a health technology team, producing technology appraisals for NICE.

When I joined Keele in 2005 I helped establish the Midlands Therapeutic Review and Advisory Committee, which continues today to provide timely advice to GPs in the West Midlands on the prescribing of new medicines. I headed up the Medicines Evaluation Unit at Keele for 8 years, and was involved in regional and national strategic developments in relation to prescribing guidance on new drugs.

In 2003 I gained an MSc in Health Technology assessment. My particular areas of interest are medicines optimisation, systematic evaluation of the evidence and the application of this evidence in practice.

Research and scholarship

My area of particular interest is evidence-based practice and the appropriate use of pharmaceutical products in line with the evidence-base, particularly when newly marketed.

My MSc is in Health Technology Assessment allowed me to evaluate systematically the clinical-effectiveness of anakinra for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in adults.

I have a broad range of experience from working as a clinical directorate pharmacist in a large teaching hospital as well as within regional medicine information centres and with GPs at a regional level. I also have experience within primary care as a PCT practice based pharmacist as part of a health technology team, producing technology appraisals for NICE. I have responsibility for updating and further developing our on-line distance learning modules for our Clinical Pharmacy Practice Diploma Programme.