About BPS Assessment

Our Mission - Supporting Improvement in Safe Prescribing Worldwide

Established in 2017, BPS Assessment is the learning and assessment arm of the British Pharmacological Society whose mission is to improve prescribing skills among medical and non-medical prescribers. We partner with organisations across the globe, working collaboratively to understand local prescribing needs and practice, to deliver the best possible resources at all levels of training. 

Better Prescribing, Better Patient Safety

Our team of clinical experts create case-based questions with comprehensive feedback on all possible answers. These questions are packaged as assessments, which can be taken alongside related eLearning to support prescribing skills by teaching the core principles of clinical pharmacology. Through our bespoke, interactive, online learning platform we offer a range of case-based products that enable users to practice and improve their prescribing in a safe environment. Beyond practice and formative learning, we deliver the Prescribing Skills Assessment, our flagship 2-hour online exam, increasingly recognized internationally as the standard prescribing qualification.

The nature of our learning resources means that they can be easily adapted to suit teaching requirements across countries or regions. The cloud-based platform allows content to be accessed at any time, from anywhere and on any device, providing the perfect distance-based learning tool to support medical teaching curricula.

Who We Are

Our Team

BPS Assessment is led by a team of unique individuals, who work together towards our shared mission. Their diverse skills and experience enables BPS Assessment to adapt quickly to the needs of the our customers and partners and drive better prescribing practices around the world.

Contact Christine Williams

Chris is a molecular pharmacologist who has worked successfully in the Pharmaceutical industry for over 20 years. She has technical expertise in early stage drug discovery, project/portfolio management and transformational change leadership experience, gained at Pfizer, UCB and Ipsen, combined with formal certification as an MBTI® practitioner. She brings her passion for people, emotional intelligence, energy and facilitation skills to engage minds and inspire change in individuals, teams and organisations through both her company (Questae Coaching & Consulting Ltd) and her volunteer work (Member of the Board at ELRIG UK, Camp group volunteer with 26th High Wycombe Scouts).

She has worked with the British Pharmacological Society for many years, firstly as a co-opted Trustee from 2011 to 2014 and now as Treasurer (term of 2018 to 2024). She is particularly excited to take on the role of Chair of the Board for BPS Assessment. It is an exciting time for the company, as it builds and strengthens relationships with global clients who are using the materials and tools that can make such a tremendous impact, saving lives through appropriate prescribing and deprescribing. She is also looking forward to working on a three-year forward looking strategy to enhance the impact for pharmacologists and patients alike.

Contact the team

Working closely with the Society’s Council, President, President Elect and Treasurer and with the two Directors, Rachel is responsible for delivering the vision, mission and strategy of the British Pharmacological Society, and its subsidiary companies.

 

Rachel is Managing Director of BPS Assessment Ltd and works closely with the Board and BPSA team to support our customers globally.


She is an experienced Non-Exec and current Trustee of the RCN Foundation

Contact the team

Mike works closely with the MD/CEO, the BPSA Board, the BPSA team and the Society’s Council and Director of Scientific Programmes, Policy, and Partnerships to build our financial and structural resilience by embedding sustainable decision frameworks, increasing efficiency, and ethically growing and diversifying funding streams in line with the charitable remit of the Society.

 

Mike provides strategic financial and commercial leadership of the BPS and BPSA, ensuring compliance and best practice in their business systems and governance.

Contact Simon Maxwell

Simon Maxwell is Professor of Student Learning/Clinical Pharmacology and Prescribing and Director of Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (CPT) teaching at the University of Edinburgh, where he has been active in developing e-Learning strategies to support education in this area. His NHS clinical responsibilities include supervision of acute medical admissions and the management of outpatients at increased cardiovascular risk.

He has been Medical Director of BPSA since it was established and has contributed many prescribing questions since that time. He is also a regular author of BPSA eLearning modules. He is Medical Director of the Prescribing Safety Assessment, a joint initiative by the BPS and MSC to produce a national assessment of prescribing for all UK medical students.

He is co-lead for the Pharmacology Education Project, an IUPHAR initiative to provide freely accessible learning materials for students of the pharmacological sciences in resource-poor countries.

When Simon is not engaged in developing projects in prescribing education Simon enjoys cycling in the countryside around Edinburgh.

Contact Lynne Bollington

Lynne Bollington is an expert in medical and pharmacy education and assessment. After completing her clinical pharmacy diploma, Lynne worked in hospitals in Nottingham, Leeds and Bristol before taking the role of All Wales education and training pharmacist.

The National Assembly for Wales sponsored her PhD resulting in policy which transformed preregistration pharmacist training in Wales.

Lynne was appointed to the General Pharmaceutical Council’s Board of Assessors from 2003 to 2017, chairing the board through the development and introduction of the revised Registration Assessment for pharmacists, launched in 2016.

She has been the lead pharmacist for the UK Prescribing Safety Assessment since 2011. As Editor-in-Chief of the BPSA, Lynne is responsible for managing the delivery and quality assurance of the BPSA assessment portfolio.

When Lynne is not working, she enjoys Indian cookery and hiking with her family and friends.

Contact Peter Wright

Peter joined the Society in April 2014 and has been involved in the delivery of prescribing assessment and eLearning since then. Specialising in the technology and logistics required to run large-scale online exams.

Peter works with customers across the globe to ensure the BPSA products meet the needs and requirements of all our partners, and that our services are always delivered to the highest standards.

Contact Marcus Hughes

Marcus Hughes is the Sales Support Officer within BPS Assessment.  He is responsible for supporting the sales of the Prescribing Skills Assessment platform and content.

 

Prior to joining BPSA, Marcus worked in sales for 15 years within the life sciences market and has extensive experience selling educational SaaS products.  

 

Marcus holds a PhD from the University of Warwick.

 

Contact Gemma D’Silva

Gemma is the Assessment Delivery Officer at the BPS. Her role involves managing the delivery of assessment and eLearning through the online platform and providing support and training to new/existing customers in the UK and worldwide. She also helps to deliver the National Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA), which is taken by all UK and Ireland medical students.

 
Prior to joining the BPS, Gemma worked in a range of exams and assessment roles within not-for-profit membership organisations, as well as support roles in schools.

 
Outside of work, she enjoys swimming, country walks with the dog, travel, going to the theatre and music concerts.

Our Ambassadors

BPS Assessment International Ambassadors raise awareness of our activities in supporting the safe and effective prescribing of medicines through the Prescribing Skills Assessment. Our International Ambassadors are a key element of our worldwide engagement strategy. As well as assisting in promotional activities they facilitate discussions with key stakeholders at a senior level, help establish local academic networks and advise of the development and introduction of prescribing training to continual medical education.

Contact Dr. Mohanad Odeh

As well as being an Ambassador for the British Pharmacological Society, Dr Odeh is a leader in pharmacy fields and is driving success in others through ongoing development.

Dr Odeh has so far connected 17 Jordanian universities with the UK Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), resulting in more than 25 PhD student sponsorships and the launch of three Top Thought Leaders forums. He also founded the Pharmacy Management and Pharmaceutical Care Innovation Centre in Jordan. His expertise helped launch new Industrial and Pharmacy Management programmes for the first time in the Middle East.

As an Assistant Professor in Clinical Pharmacy, Dr Odeh has been celebrated for the quality of his work, with one article among the top 10% most cited PLoS ONE papers published in 2019 and another being featured as a top download by the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.

Dr Odeh has also received many local and international awards. He was selected for ‘’Best Researcher Award – International Research Award on Infectious Diseases 2021-22’’ and leads many committees in Jordan and the Middle East North Africa.

Dr Odeh has successfully created and led many Building Capacity and Personal Development Programs for various National and Arab world bodies. He has trained more than one thousand future leaders and enjoys helping others turn dreams into reality.

Contact Dr Thamir Alshammari

Dr Thamir Alshammari is an Associate of Pharmacy Practice and a Pharmacoepidemiology & Pharmacovigilance Consultant. He is also a distinguished expert for the Chinese National Drug Safety and Policy Centre at Xian, China.

 

Dr Alshammari is a senior researcher and Medication Safety Research Chair at the University of Hail. He has also served as Dean of the College of Pharmacy, University of Hail and as the Director of the National Pharmacovigilance and Drug Safety Centre, Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA). He has taken on several initiatives during his work at SFDA including reviewing processes, benefit-risk analysis, DHCPLs and others. He is a member of several committees and he serves as a chair in some of them.

 

Dr Alshammari has over 65 publications in peer-reviewed journals and has been invited to many national and international conferences and meetings. He received both his bachelor degree in pharmaceutical sciences and his master degree in clinical pharmacy from King Saud University. Dr Alshammari received his PhD in pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacoeconomics from the University of Rhode Island, USA.

 

Dr Alshammari has completed several fellowships, including a post-doctoral fellowship at the Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology, US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He is the only Saudi to have completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the FDA. Dr Alshammari also completed a pre-doctoral fellowship at Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the USA.

 

His research interests include pharmacoepidemiology, pharmacovigilance and medication safety, and pharmacoeconomics.

Contact Dr. Thikryat Neamatallah

Dr. Thikryat Neamatallah is an Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, King Abdulaziz University KAU, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She obtained her Pharm. D degree from KAU in 2008, MSc degree in Forensic Toxicology from University of Glasgow in 2010 and Ph.D. degree in Pharmacology from the University of Strathclyde, in 2014

 

Her research interests are focused on the molecular mechanisms of intracellular signalling that regulate cellular functions such as proliferation and the immune responses. She is also interested in studying the signals between cancer cells and immune cells within the cancer microenvironment.

Contact Dr Moustafa Fahmy

Dr Moustafa holds a Ph.D in Pharmaceutical Sciences “Medicinal Chemistry” (1991) awarded jointly by the University of Alexandria, Egypt and the University of Strathclyde. His research interests are in the synthesis of novel Dopaminergic compounds either agonists or antagonists. Since 2008 he has been Dean of the Oman Pharmacy Institute in Muscat.

Contact Professor Naser Al-Tannak

Professor Naser Al-Tannak is a graduate of the Universities of Kuwait (B.Pharm Hons) and Strathclyde (MSc, PhD in Pharmaceutical Analysis) and is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Kuwait University. He was a post-doctoral researcher and teaching fellow at Strathclyde. 

His research focuses on separation techniques, pharmaceutical dosage form analysis, natural product analysis and drug stability studies. Recent publications include: Antimycobacterial Activities of N-SubstitutedGlycinyl 1H1,2,3-Triazolyl Oxazolidinones and Analytical Method Development and Validation for a Representative Compound (2017) and UHPLC-UV Analysis of Morin and Structurally Related Flavonoids with Potential Anticancer Activity (2017)

Our Authors

All of our contributing authors are experts in pharmacology and prescribing, actively working across the UK to help improve patient safety.

Simon Maxwell is Professor of Student Learning/Clinical Pharmacology and Prescribing and Director of Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (CPT) teaching at the University of Edinburgh, where he has been active in developing e-Learning strategies to support education in this area. His NHS clinical responsibilities include supervision of acute medical admissions and the management of outpatients at increased cardiovascular risk.

He has been Medical Director of BPSA since it was established and has contributed many prescribing questions since that time. He is also a regular author of BPSA eLearning modules. He is Medical Director of the Prescribing Safety Assessment, a joint initiative by the BPS and MSC to produce a national assessment of prescribing for all UK medical students.

He is co-lead for the Pharmacology Education Project, an IUPHAR initiative to provide freely accessible learning materials for students of the pharmacological sciences in resource-poor countries.

When Simon is not engaged in developing projects in prescribing education Simon enjoys cycling in the countryside around Edinburgh.

Lynne Bollington is an expert in medical and pharmacy education and assessment. After completing her clinical pharmacy diploma, Lynne worked in hospitals in Nottingham, Leeds and Bristol before taking the role of All Wales education and training pharmacist.

The National Assembly for Wales sponsored her PhD resulting in policy which transformed preregistration pharmacist training in Wales.

Lynne was appointed to the General Pharmaceutical Council’s Board of Assessors from 2003 to 2017, chairing the board through the development and introduction of the revised Registration Assessment for pharmacists, launched in 2016.

She has been the lead pharmacist for the UK Prescribing Safety Assessment since 2011. As Editor-in-Chief of the BPSA, Lynne is responsible for managing the delivery and quality assurance of the BPSA assessment portfolio.

When Lynne is not working, she enjoys Indian cookery and hiking with her family and friends.

Alison Eggleton is an Independent Pharmacist Consultant. Alison was previously a consultant pharmacist in academic clinical pharmacy practice at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She is an Independent Pharmacist Prescriber, Faculty Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and has master’s degrees in both clinical pharmacy and clinical pharmacy teaching. After retiring from full time employment in 2012, she continues to work part time at CUH in a variety of senior roles.

Her interests are medical and pharmacy education, pharmacy management, surgical pharmacy and hepatology. Alison joined the authoring team in 2012 because of an ongoing passion for health education. She has co-authored modules on a range of prescribing safety topics for the Prescribe e-learning course. She joined the authoring team for BPS Assessment in 2018 and is now a senior editor. She recently took the lead on developing modules to assist newly qualified practitioners and those returning to community and hospital practice during the global pandemic. Alison is happily married and enjoys spending time with her family in France. She enjoys bird watching, and patchwork in her spare time.

Sarah McDonald is a senior hospital pharmacist working in NHS Ayrshire & Arran. Sarah is currently leading the transformation of clinical pharmacy services in Ayrshire but also has an active interest in medical education, having worked in this area for the previous 10 years. She has been a qualified independent prescriber for over 10 years with a special interest in acute medicine and diabetes. She joined the BPSA authoring team in 2017 with a view to contributing to undergraduate and postgraduate prescribing education for the medical, nursing and pharmacy professions to improve prescribing safety. In 2018 she moved to the role of Senior Editor and has been involved in supervising and supporting the authoring team, as well as building assessments and providing post-assessment support for a number of customers. When she isn’t working Sarah enjoys reading, swimming and spending time outdoors with her family in the beautiful West coast of Scotland.

Lesley Herd is a General Practice Clinical Pharmacist based in NHS Ayrshire and Arran, having previously had experience as a clinical pharmacist in A+E and as a lecturer in Non-Medical Prescribing education at a local university. Her current role aims to deliver pharmacotherapy services in GP practice with key priorities being provision of patient-focused, safe, and cost-effective treatment. She has an active interest in elderly care, frailty and education and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She joined the BPSA authoring team in September 2019 as an opportunity to provide students with relevant and authentic education in prescribing issues. Since then, she has been involved in writing questions on internal medicine and medicine management in a variety of settings and contributing to peer review of new material. During any free time, Lesley enjoys playing her trombone and has recently taken up art as a hobby.

Katie Hatton is a senior pharmacist, most recently employed by Cambridge University Hospitals where she held the post of Lead Pharmacist for Surgery. In this post Katie was responsible for delivering the clinical pharmacy service to the surgical directorates. Katie has recently completed an MSc in Clinical Research and is an independent prescriber with particular interests in antimicrobials and emergency medicine. Her other passion is using research to implement change which directly benefits patients.

 

She joined the BPSA authoring team in April 2020 to use her knowledge of medicines and prescribing experience to develop the prescribing skills of healthcare professionals.  Since joining the team Katie has been involved in the authoring and peer review of new material. Outside of work Katie is a keen runner and also enjoys spending time outdoors exploring the countryside with her young family.

Lynsay is a clinical pharmacist currently based in Ayrshire & Arran. For the past year, Lynsay has been leading the large clinical pharmacist team at University Hospital Crosshouse. In her previous roles, Lynsay practiced as a renal pharmacist and also gained almost 10 years’ experience in the provision of prescribing education to medical students and junior doctors. She maintains an interest in medical education & renal pharmacy. Lynsay joined the BPSA authoring team in August 2017 with a view to contributing to the prescribing education for medical, nursing and pharmacy students. Since joining the team, she has been involved in writing questions for a number of our customers. Lynsay is mum to two active boys and enjoys family travels in their camper van. In the winter, she works as a ski instructor and in the summer, months enjoys paddle boarding on the Scottish west coast, close to where she grew up.

Jonathan Chartres is a lead pharmacist for patient services and procurement at the South West Acute Hospital. Jonathan has worked across a number of clinical specialties and has an interest in pharmaceutical calculations for professional practice. He is a question writer for the General Pharmaceutical Council’s Registration Assessment and previously sat on the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland’s examination committee. Jonathan joined the BPSA authoring team in April 2020 with a view to contributing to prescribing education for medical, nursing and pharmacy students. Since joining the team, he has been involved in writing questions for the prescribing skills assessment. When Jonathan isn’t working, he enjoys walking and traveling.

Contact Us

The team at BPS Assessment would love to hear from you.