Choice and Medication© is produced and maintained by specialist pharmacists who are national experts in the field of mental health.
Main Author
Professor Stephen Bazire MBE was until his retirement from the NHS in January 2015, Consultant Pharmacist (GPhC number 2022821) for Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (having been Chief Pharmacist 1986-2011). Steve is also an Honorary Professor, School of Pharmacy, University of East Anglia in Norwich, and a Trustee for Norwich and Central Norfolk Mind. A Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, awarded an MBE in 2010 for services to pharmacy and awarded the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists Gold Medal in 2013 for outstanding contributions to pharmacy in the NHS.
Steve is an internationally known speaker on ADHD, Medication Choice, Bipolar Disorder and other Mental Health topics. He has been Chairman and Council Member of the College of Mental Health Pharmacy, a member of the Council of British Association for Psychopharmacology, and Visiting Fellow and External Examiner for the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Aston University and Birmingham.
Stephen Bazire is a Director of Mistura Enterprise Ltd® (Choice and Medication©) and Mistura Informatics Ltd® (MaPPs 2©). He led content development for the Choice and Medication© website since it was launched in 2008. This provides information in a variety of ways including online formats and downloadable leaflets because one size does not fit all.
Professor Bazire is probably best known as Author of the “Psychotropic Drug Directory“, of which there have been 27 editions (latest 2016) and over half a million copies sold worldwide. His special clinical interests include depression, bipolar, adult ADHD, user and carer information, finally education on medicines. He was also active in implementing automation and electronic prescribing in mental health pharmacy.
Managing Director
Dawn Price is a registered independent prescribing specialist pharmacist (GPhC number 2039501). She has over 15 years senior management and clinical experience in Secondary Care Pharmacy, Substance Misuse, Clinical Justice and Specialist Mental Health Pharmacy. In addition, Dawn has extensive experience in primary care, working in community pharmacy and managing medication review clinics in general practice as well as being one of the first medicines management pharmacists, (BMJ 2000).
Dawn has worked at a national level as the Royal Pharmaceutical Society expert representative for Substance Misuse working with Public Health England for both the review of the UK Clinical Guidelines (The Orange Guidelines) and the Non-Medical Prescribing in Substance Misuse Guidelines. Committee Member of the steering group for the NMPSM (Non-Medical Prescribing in Substance Misuse), Committee Member of College of Mental Health Pharmacy (2009-2010) and was Vice Chair of UK Psychiatric Pharmacy Group (2007-2009). Previous positions held include National Chief Pharmacist and Non-Medical Prescribing Lead at Addaction (2011-2016), Deputy Chief Pharmacist at Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (2009-2011), Chief Pharmacist, Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (2008-2009), Chief Pharmacist South of Tyne and Wearside Mental Health Trust (2004-2008).
In the past, Dawn has also project managed the deployment of web based pharmacy systems, e-prescribing systems and e-learning systems within Healthcare Organisations. This includes deployment of near patient testing analysers in a novel service for patients on Clozapine with added value for health supported by independent prescribing clinical pharmacists. Following presentation at the European Association for Hospital Pharmacy (EAHP) in 2007 this is now standard practice for mental health pharmacy. Her special interests in pharmacy now lie in Information Technology with design, development, testing and implementation of clinical health systems. Dawn has a particular speciality in HCI applying usability testing of systems to ensure they are both usable and useful. As a result Dawn is now finalising a doctorate in HCI (IT) having researched the clinical outcomes of the Choice and Medication© health information website for patients with mental health conditions.
Dawn is Managing Director of both Mistura Enterprise Ltd® (Choice and Medication©) and Mistura Informatics Ltd® (MaPPs 2©) and is responsible for all aspects of running the IT company and managing the ever growing clinical and operational teams.