John Warburton is confirmed as UKCPA new Chair
The UK Clinical Pharmacy Association (UKCPA) have today announced that John Warburton will take on the role of Chair of the organisation in January 2025 after unanimous support from the UKCPA Nominations Committee.
John is the Divisional Director of Professions at University Hospitals Bristol & Weston NHS Foundation Trust. In this role he leads the divisional clinical quality, patient safety and experience of care agendas for a division of support services which include pharmacy, radiology, therapies and laboratory medicine amongst others. He is the trust non-medical prescribing lead and still works clinically as a critical care pharmacist.
He has been a member of UKCPA for over 14 years and has risen through the ranks of the organisation during that time. He was a member of the Critical Care Committee before being accepted onto the UKCPA Board of Directors as Education Lead in February 2023.
John will serve a three-year term from 1 January 2025. “UKCPA has been a keystone of my professional career since joining in 2007 as Agenda for Change swept through the NHS”, he says. “Back then, UKCPA was seen as an essential and pioneering community for clinical pharmacists and the offer has grown exponentially since. It's an absolute honour to be taught by, and work with, inspirational UKCPA members at all levels throughout my career to date.”
He continues, “UKCPA is now a resilient and professionally structured membership organisation with a dramatically growing digital presence and outstanding professional advocacy. It's an honour to accept such a prestigious role and I do so knowing three things: firstly, the Chair role is but a small part of the organization, where key staff are working tirelessly to serve the interest of the members and advance the profession. Secondly, that baton handovers such as this are not done at a standstill; there is so much going on around redefining the leadership of the profession, expanding commissioned education and improving our digital presence to showcase what we do far and wide across the health and care sector. Thirdly, that the strength of UKCPA is in its communities – like-minded exceptional clinicians, often separated by geography but close in purpose to uphold and improve standards of patient care. I can't wait to get started.”
John will take over from Mohamed (Mo) Rahman who has been in the role since January 2022. Mo will step down as Chair on 31 December 2024 and will continue to serve a three-year term on the Board of Directors as Past Chair.
Mo says, “It has been a privilege to be the Chair of UKCPA, leading the organisation in delivering high quality education, and providing a home for pharmacy professionals across sectors and specialties, to share, learn, and seek and provide support.”
He continues, “I am proud of the significant progress we have made over the past three years, including refreshing our strategy and branding which has enabled us to meet our increasing demand for our webinars, masterclasses and conferences, and honouring new external contracts for delivery of education. Importantly, we have also been at the forefront of the pharmacy leadership agenda via membership of the UK Pharmacy Professional Leadership Advisory Board - as a key stakeholder we will inform the future direction of the pharmacy profession.
“I am delighted that my long-standing affiliation with UKCPA (since 2000) will continue as a Board member for another three-year term. I am thrilled to hand over to John and am looking forward to continuing to work with him and rest of the Board in growing UKCPA.”
During Mo’s tenure as Chair of UKCPA from 2022 to 2024, the organisation has achieved the following:
- Publication of five-year Strategic Plan, reaffirming our two core pillars of Education and Community and refining our mission and vision statements
- Launch of new UKCPA branding
- Launch of new member portal and online events booking
- Establishment of Emergency Care committee and Genomics committee bringing our total number of specialist committees to 17
- Updated Handbook of Perioperative Medicines
- Delivered over 67 webinars and 24 multipart online courses to 5500+ practitioners
- Re-introduction of face-to-face events post-Covid, including two face-to-face conferences
- Winning of competitive contract from NHS England for national Foundation level critical care training for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians
- Contract with Health Education & Improvement Wales for national Foundation level critical care training for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians
- Launch of Advanced Pharmacist Critical Care Curriculum and credentialing assessment process
- Key stakeholder in UK Commission on Pharmacy Professional Leadership, and ex-officio member of UK Pharmacy Professional Leadership Advisory Board
These achievements are added to the list of the following milestones in UKCPA’s history:
- Significant legal restructure to become a company limited by guarantee, and associated governance restructure to implement a Board of Directors
- First pharmacy professional body to publish a Climate Emergency Declaration
- Launch of Handbook of Perioperative Medicines
- Introduction of virtual education during COVID period
- Key involvement in the development and re-launch of the Core Advanced Pharmacist curriculum and credentialing
- Key involvement in the development of the Consultant curriculum and credentialing
The UKCPA leadership team will also say farewell to Dr Ruth Bednall who was Chair of the organisation from 2019 to 2021, and Past Chair since January 2022.