Community Pharmacy IT Group (CP ITG) representatives
Published on: 11th September 2020 | Updated on: 14th December 2022
Read more about CP ITG and its work at: the Community Pharmacy IT Group (CP ITG) webpage.
This ‘CP ITG representatives‘ webpage below sets out more information about those that attend the CP ITG meetings and take part with the group’s work.
As set out in the CP ITG Terms of Reference (ToR), CP ITG has formal members drawn from pharmacy bodies: Community Pharmacy England, NPA, RPS, CCA and AIMp, to ensure that all types of community pharmacies are represented and that the professional IT aspects are being considered. Additionally, other pharmacy reps can also attend in line with the ToR, and NHSE&I, NHS Digital, NHSBSA and NHSX and system suppliers send representatives to take part with the group’s work.
Community Pharmacy England currently provides a secretariat function for the cross-sector pharmacy group. The group hopes to collectively encourage the sector to get more engaged with the many upcoming digital changes.
Matt Armstrong, Boots Pharmacy (chair)
Matt started his career in Boots as a pre-registration pharmacist in 2006 and moved into pharmacy management roles. From 2012, he took on Boots responsibility for implementation of NHS digital programmes including EPS, Summary Care Record, Community Pharmacy Consultation Service, NHSmail and hospital discharge schemes. He now leads on the pharmacy project development contract with responsibility for the development of national NHS pharmacy contract frameworks and funding mechanisms across the UK with a specific focus on digital innovation and technology. He is passionate about digital innovation in community pharmacy and believes digital integration of pharmacy into NHS systems will enable pharmacy teams to deliver more clinical services and care to patients through greater efficiency. Matt is a member of Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes LPC and Chair of the CCA Digital Innovation Group. He was elected as Chair for CP ITG from June 2021.
David Broome (Vice Chair)
David Broome qualified from the University of Bath School of Pharmacy in 1990 and has been an independent contractor for nearly 20 years. He runs his pharmacy business with his wife, Jackie, and he is an active member and officer of Community Pharmacy West Yorkshire. David has a great passion for community pharmacy with keen interests including EPS, medicines safety and clinical pharmacy. He has been involved with the EPS implementation board, medicines safety exchange, area prescribing committee and local mental health trust medicines committee. David has been an LPC member for more than seven years and was elected to Community Pharmacy England in August 2013. Aside from his role as Vice Chair, he also acts as a representative on the group for Community Pharmacy England.
Community Pharmacy England’s CP ITG members are:
David Broome (see Chairs section).
Sunil Kochhar, Community Pharmacy England South East Coast Regional Representative
Sunil K. Kochhar is a consultant pharmacist for the online patient information platform, www.dearPHARMACIST.info. He has over 20 years’ hands-on experience of helping local communities improve their health and wellbeing through educational events, screening services and innovative methods, resulting in great health and wellbeing outcomes. Within all his work, Sunil has demonstrated that marketing is an essential part of gaining public engagement to enhance their health and wellbeing. His current work and activity aims to unite pharmacy as a profession through conversations with his online forum platform, www.pharmacyTALK.co.uk
Fin McCaul, Community Pharmacy England North West Regional Representative
Fin graduated from the Liverpool School of Pharmacy in 1986 and is Managing Director of Prestwich Pharmacy in Manchester. Fin was a past founder and Chair of the Independent Pharmacy Federation and now works alongside the NPA board where his role continues to promote the benefits of independent pharmacy whilst supporting their members. Fin has worked with a variety of public health groups and is currently the Long Term Conditions Lead for Bury CCG, working with GPs, other primary care providers and secondary care providers. Fin also speaks and delivers training at local and national events on smoking cessation, weight loss, professional development and change management. Fin was awarded fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in 2016 for his service to pharmacy.
CCA’s regular attendees are:
Matt Armstrong, Boots Pharmacy (chair) (see Chairs section).
Craig Spurdle, Rowlands Pharmacy
Craig joined Rowlands Pharmacy / PHOENIX in 1995 heading up the IT function for Rowlands. Over the last 25 years he has held senior IT roles with responsibility for the pharmacy and distribution businesses, joining the company’s Board of Directors as their first IT Director in early 2018. A founding member of the PHOENIX European CIO board, he has had the opportunity to develop IT strategy on a UK and European level and continues to play an active role in the wider PHOENIX group. During his career he has overseen the introduction of advanced large scale automation solutions and innovations such as the adoption of new target operating and delivery models. Craig is focused on customer and patient centric solutions and in demonstrating the value that IT can provide.
George Radford, Llyodspharmacy
NPA’s CP ITG members are:
David Evans
David Evans graduated from the University of Bath in 1986 and completed his pre-registration training at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. He spent some time working in hospital in Nottingham before travelling to work as a pharmacist in Australia. Returning to the UK to work in community pharmacy in 1989, he subsequently joined the family business as Managing Director and Superintendent Pharmacist. David has served on both Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire LPC’s, being chair of the former for a number of years. As well as NHS community pharmacy p
ractice, David has in depth experience of pharmaceutical wholesaling and extensive involvement in veterinary pharmacy. He qualified as an independent prescriber in 2008. David sits on the Veterinary Expert Panel of the British Pharmacopeia, and in 2012 was appointed to the Poisons Board by the Home Secretary. He lectures on veterinary pharmacy at DeMontfort University, Leicester and has sat on the NPA Board of Management since 2007.
Graham Phillips
Nick Kaye
AIMp CP ITG regular attendees are:
Darryl Dethick, Peak Pharmacy
Darryl started his career with Lloydspharmacy as a pre-registration pharmacist in 1995, working through a number of branch and field management roles. In 2016 he took on a Central Operations role within Lloyds, with responsibility for implementing a number of NHS Digital workstreams including Summary Care Record, whilst overseeing the pharmacy operation of the Electronic Prescription Service. Darryl moved over to Peak Pharmacy in 2018 and into the role of Head of Business Transformation, looking after a number of key projects in the business. He has a keen interest in pharmacy IT systems and working towards making a simple patient journey through pharmacy, both for the patient and the pharmacy. Darryl is also Treasurer for Derbyshire LPC.
Iqbal Vorajee, Cohens Pharmacy
Steve Ash, Day Lewis Pharmacy
Milan Patel, Novacare Pharmacy
RPS regular participants are:
Stephen Goundrey-Smith
Heidi Wright
Aside from those that attend as CP ITG pharmacy members, additional pharmacy representatives regularly attend and take part including:
Anil Sharma, East Anglia Regional Representative
Anil Sharma qualified in 1997 from John Moores University and has been a practising independent contractor for 20 years. He runs a small group of pharmacies with his wife Geeta. Anil has been an LPC member since 2006 and currently sits on two LPCs as well as being the NPA East Anglia Representative. Anil has a particular interest in travel medicine, rural pharmacies, future development of the profession and promoting young pharmacists to become independent contractors.
(Various)
System suppliers with representation on the group relate to those systems listed below.
CP ITG PMR and CPCF suppliers
- Analyst PMR (Positive Solutions)
- Colombus (Boots)
- LS systems (Lloydspharmacy)
- Nexphase (Cegedim Rx)
- Pharmacy Manager (Cegedim Rx)
- PharmOutcomes
- ProScript (EMIS Health formerly Rx Systems)
- ProScript Connect (EMIS Health formerly Rx Systems)
- ProScript LINK (AAH Pharmaceuticals)
- RxWeb (Clanwilliam)
- Sonar
- Titan (Invatechhealth)
- V-Rx (VCare)
Other CP ITG suppliers
Other suppliers that regularly attend include/participate include:
- Jelly Software
- Written Medicine
Full supplier list
A list of system suppliers relating to pharmacy can be seen at: System supplier lists.
Other existing or prospective suppliers are welcome to request attendance by contacting it@cpe.org.uk.
Representatives which take part with LPC work include:
David Broome (see ‘Chairs’ section)
Sanjay Ghanvir
Richard Dean
Richard Dean graduated from the London School of Pharmacy in 1970. He has spent his entire career in the family business – Dean & Smedley Ltd – who currently have 10 pharmacies. The company which dates back to 1927 is now run by the fourth generation, his daughter Lucy. Richard was an LPC member and chair for 36 years, a Health Authority non-executive director for over 8 years, and a Pharmacy Voice board member. He was Chair of the former Pharmacy Voice IT group. He has also served on various groups involved in pharmacy IT from the beginnings of EPS planning which started from the early noughties. He helped to establish the Community Pharmacy IT Group and was CP ITG chair from its inception in 2017 until June 2021 when he retired from pharmacy and from CP ITG.
Get involved
If you have a related query or would like to feed into the CP ITG or share your updates about IT and digital issues then please don’t hesitate to contact one of the group’s organisers, Dan Ah-Thion or it@cpe.org.uk or you can also sign-up to join the virtual Community Pharmacy Digital Group which helps inform CP ITG’s work with others. You can be involved as much or as little as you like with CPDG, and can unsubscribe from that email group at any time.
Go to the IT webpage: Community Pharmacy IT Group (CP ITG) to view more about it and its work.
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For more information on this topic please email comms.team@cpe.org.uk