Head of Department:
Professor Rob Horne

About the Department:
The clear goal of the Department of Practice and Policy is to make the use of medicines safer and more effective for patients. Our staff are dedicated to improving the health of patients through health services research, focusing on the use of medicines by individuals and by society. Research includes areas such as: development of health policy; evaluation of pharmacy services; creation of quality care systems; management of risk; assessment of health technology; appraisal of consumer perspectives on medicines, and establishment of innovative educational programmes.

We are a diverse group of pharmacists, psychologists and social science researchers who have have a wide network of associations with other academic disciplines. Our academic collaborators include University College London, Imperial College London, London School of Economics, the Institute of Education and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.  Our Department includes three research centres: the Centre for Paediatric Pharmacy Research (jointly with GOS/ICH), which studies all aspects of medicines for children; the Centre for Behavioural Medicine, which studies medicines-related behaviour and the psychosocial factors influencing the prescribing, taking and effects of medicines, and the Centre for Medication Safety and Service Quality (jointly with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust).

We also have strong links with several major London hospitals including Bart's and the London, Guy's and St. Thomas's, University College Hospitals and Imperial College Healthcare Trust. We collaborate with the five other Bloomsbury Colleges to form one of the largest and most inter-disciplinary academic groupings on development issues in the UK; The London International Development Centre.

Practice and Policy staff are involved in curricular development and teaching across all four years of the MPharm course. In addition, we have one of the largest postgraduate programmes in Europe. Our student body includes international pharmacists studying for an MSc in Clinical Pharmacy, International Practice and Policy, as well as more than a dozen PhD students and postdoctoral fellows.