About the department

Pharmacy

The University is well known as a centre of excellence for healthcare education, so setting up a School of Pharmacy within the Faculty of Health and Human Sciences was a natural step. We recruited the first students to our MPharm degree in 2005, and have great ambitions for the future in teaching, research and commercial activities. This is now the Department of Pharmacy within the newly-created School of Life and Medical Sciences.

Our innovative programme benefits from the School's extensive experience and resources, and its established links with practitioners across the NHS and industry. Strongly patient-focused, it builds on the School’s technical competence and professional understanding to deal with the issues of modern pharmacy practice.

The Department has a modern, brand new 75 capacity chemistry laboratory and analytical science laboratory fully equipped with the latest HPLC.

Uniquely our programme combines a strong science base of inter-professional learning with nursing and therapists. Our brand new Health Research Centre offers world-class teaching and learning facilities, including Europe’s largest medical simulation laboratory. Professor Soraya Dhillon, Head of School, is the first University staff member to be awarded an MBE for Healthcare services in Queen's 2007 New Year Honours.

Learning environment

The Department offers a very pleasant learning environment, within easy reach of London, and local NHS trusts, community pharmacists, and the pharmaceutical industry.

At the College Lane Campus we have over 250 full-time undergraduates. We also offer a postgraduate course, which can be studied either full-time or as individual modules, as well as part-time courses for practitioners, covering areas such as supplementary prescribing and non-medical prescribing.

Our emphasis is on developing professional attitudes and patient orientation, together with a broad appreciation of different healthcare roles.

Students are actively supported by our academic staff, who are leading professionals in the fields of pharmaceutics, pharmacology and physiology, pharmaceutical chemistry and biosciences. Several are practising pharmacists; others have first-hand experience of teaching hospital and community pharmacy.

21st Century resources

The University’s £30 million Health Sciences building offers world-class teaching, learning and conference facilities.

It features a special simulation centre equipped with a pharmacy which has the first UK university robotic dispensary, intensive care units, ward environments, and a GP surgery, as well as the very latest audio visual technology. In an environment that imitates real life, students can quickly gain confidence in key areas of practice.

To help prepare and present coursework professionally students also have access to the University’s 24/7 Learning Resources Centre and its groundbreaking e-learning environment, StudyNet.

Enterprise partnerships

We have productive relationships both with local healthcare providers - including hospitals, community pharmacies and Primary Care Trusts - and the pharmaceutical sector. Valuable placement opportunities in a range of healthcare settings enable students to develop new skills and knowledge through contact with professionals and patients.

Research focus

The Department is building a strategic research framework for pharmaceutics and drug delivery, pharmacy practice and pharmacy education.

As a group, we have many years’ research experience across a broad range of topics. Particular strengths are pharmaceutical and medical law and ethics, clinical pharmacokinetics, and pharmacy education.

Our research programme, which was launched in Spring 2007, exploits this expertise while responding to identified industry and healthcare needs. It concentrates on four strategic areas: skin formulation and drug delivery, patient safety and prescribing, evaluation of the pharmacist’s role and pharmacy education, and law, ethics and professionalism.