About Us
NHS ML employs over 1,800 staff and provides a range of clinical and non-clinical services. Our medicines management and optimisation (MMO) team includes pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and project managers who work closely together with a range of other departments, including national CSUs, business intelligence, information governance, communications and engagement and the Strategy Unit to bring the right solutions and skills for our clients and partners. We achieve consistently high scores in the annual NHS staff satisfaction surveys and we thrive on good feedback and testimonials from our partner clients.
ML has 10 years’ experience in delivering MMO support nationally and locally for a wide range of organisations including; NHS England, Integrated Care Systems, Primary Care Networks/GP practices, NHS Trusts, local authorities, private and charity organisations as well as off-shore.
Our services include
- Support for Integrated Care Systems
- Clinical support for primary care organisations including PCNs and Federations
- Programme & Partnerships support
Support for Integrated Care Systems
Our Integrated Systems services includes strategy, governance and back-office support providing a range of outputs such as advanced data management, development of system incentives, formulary decision making and harmonisation, non-medical prescribing support, end to end rebates management, patient group directions, safety assurance tools, NHS-industry partnership, QIPP, budget setting and committee governance.
Clinical support for primary care
We offer clinical support for primary care including practice-based medicines optimisation programmes, clinically led prescription ordering direct call centre services and care homes medicine systems safety assurance
Our team of clinical pharmacists and pharmacy technicians support GP practices and Primary Care Networks (PCNs) to deliver national NHS service specifications and extended or urgent care. Our team can support PCNs with medicines strategy development, additional professional staff capacity, analysis and interpretation of prescribing data to support with locally identified priorities, improve QOF and local DES/LES achievement, improve patient medicines safety, and provide training for their teams.
Programme & partnerships support
Our programme support brings together pharmacy and programme leadership to deliver large scale and bespoke projects covering a range of areas including evaluation and implementation of national programmes, specialist clinical and policy support and NHS-industry partnerships.
To achieve the best outputs from ML we want to understand your needs, problems, and vision so that we can co-design the right solutions and develop innovation. We will match the right staffing and resources throughout the life of the contract.
Our delivery is provided using programme management techniques, providing a single lead contact, project plans, risk management, defined quality standards, and highlight reporting to ensure that projects are delivered on time and to a high standard.
Welcome to Our Medicines Management and Optimisation Senior Leadership Team
Jonathan Horgan
Director of Pharmacy Services
Jonathan Horgan has led the Medicines Management and Optimisation, and Individual Funding Request services since 2013 in NHS commissioning support. Prior to this he has worked across four main sectors; briefly in the pharmaceutical industry and retail pharmacy sectors, and for the majority of his time in hospital and primary care/commissioning. Over 25 years of this experience has been in the NHS. During this time he has held a range of posts in Medicines Optimisation, as well as wider leadership positions including deputising at CSU Board level. He has experience in developing services to reduce health inequalities, is patient focused with service development, and has a good knowledge of the system wide issues that affect patient care.
Jonathan is a registered pharmacist, with a post-graduate Clinical Diploma and a MSc in Health Care and Policy, and the occasional journal publication.
Brent Horrell
Head of Medicines Commissioning, Lancashire Hub
Brent leads the Lancashire Hub Team and is the medicines management and optimisation lead for at scale services, data analytics, finance and budget setting and QIPP planning. Brent was the IPMO Pharmacist Lead for South Cumbria and Lancashire ICS, one of seven vanguard sites nationally and was also the senior pharmacist lead for the Covid-19 pandemic vaccination response in Lancashire and South Cumbria.
Ravinder Kalkat
Head of Medicines Optimisation (Midlands Region) & Regional Lead for Home Oxygen Services (West Midlands)
Ravinder Kalkat provides expert Medicines Optimisation support to the Midlands Hub team, a range of regional and national projects including the initial NHSE Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS) evaluation. He is the Regional Lead for the West Midlands Home Oxygen Service overseeing management and service improvement.
Paula Wilson
Associate Director of Pharmacy Services - Partnerships
Paula provides expert Medicines Optimisation support across Cheshire and Merseyside. She is the lead for the Mersey hub team and the medicines management and optimisation partnerships team with clients across England including overseas governments, Primary Care Networks, NHSEI Pharmacy Integration programme implementation and evaluations and a variety of medicines related at scale projects.
Debbie Lowe
Head of Service – Individual Funding Request & Clinical Policy
Debra (Debbie) Lowe leads the team that delivers the Individual Funding Request (IFR) & Clinical Policy Development service across Northwest England. A well-established IFR and policy development experienced team, with dedicated general practice clinicians, nurses, allied health professionals and public health consultants.
With 30 years NHS experience, Debbie has accumulated diverse commissioning experience at a senior management level, delivering a range of local and regional projects including the production of robust quality and governance frameworks. Awarded as a Health Service Journal (HSJ) 2011 Patient Safety category finalist for her work to improve patient safety culture and reporting within Community Pharmacy.
Most recently, Debbie was instrumental in the development of an effective information management system, ‘IndEx’, a bespoke IFR Case Management solution to support the delivery of a highly effective, efficient, consistent and at scale approach to IFR case management.
Debbie and her team supported the COVID-19 pandemic response providing programme management expertise and staff resources to support the vaccination programme including regional vaccination appointment booking systems and site management. Debbie was also recruited to monitor and report on frontline healthcare service pressures to support the NHS response to the pandemic.