Spotlight: Is there an opioid prescription crisis in the UK?

Jane Quinlan studied medicine and trained in anaesthesia in London before moving to Oxford. She is a consultant in anaesthesia and pain management at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is an honorary senior clinical lecturer at the University of Oxford. She is secretary of the Acute Pain Special Interest Group (APSIG) for the International Association for the Study of Pain and past chair of APSIG of the British Pain Society.

Jane has an interest in prescribed opioid dependence and was a core member of the Opioid Painkiller Dependence Alliance, a collaboration of pain and addiction specialists and patient groups committed to raising awareness of opioid painkiller problems and campaigning for dedicated services. She runs a clinic supporting pain patients in reducing their prescribed opioids.

Rosanna O’Connor is Director, Alcohol, Drugs & Tobacco within the Health and Wellbeing Directorate of Public Health England (PHE). Rosanna was previously Director of Delivery at the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA). Having joined the NTA in 2003, she quickly assumed responsibility for all the agency’s operational activity.

Her interest in health inequalities of individuals and communities is based on extensive experience of local communities.

Dr Guirguis originally trained as an accountant before gaining an interest to pursue a career as a pharmacist. She gained her PhD in the in-field detection of Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS).

Dr Guirguis pioneered the initiative of develop a ‘new’ concept for providing insight among pharmacists, other healthcare professionals and service providers of the completely new area of NPS which cumulated undergraduate and postgraduate pharmacy education modules and was the subject of recent Swansea University Podcast series. She was the 2014 winner of the JPAG’s Geoffrey Phillips award and the Principal Investigator of the first Home Office-licensed Pharmacist-led drug checking service in the UK. Dr Guirguis is now the MPharm Programme Director at Swansea University Medical School and is a known international expert in the field of drug detection.

David completed his medical training at Guy's Hospital London, continuing in neurology to MRCP. 

After completing his psychiatric training in Oxford, he continued there as a lecturer and then later as a Wellcome Senior Fellow in psychiatry. In 1988, he set up the Psychopharmacology Unit in Bristol University, an interdisciplinary research grouping spanning the departments of Psychiatry and Pharmacology before moving to Imperial College London in December 2008 where he leads a similar group with a particular focus on brain imaging especially PET. 

Professor Martini is Chief Scientist for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) where he ensures that the RPS stays at the forefront of medicines development and utilization. In this capacity, Professor Martini is often asked to comment in the media and with Government on topical issues such as Brexit, Drug Shortages, Cannabis, Antibiotic Resistance and Drug Discovery to name but a few.

Professor Martini is a registered practicing Industrial Pharmacist and a Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Professor Martini also divides his time between the RPS and King’s College London as a visiting Professor in Pharmaceutical Innovation, after having held the Chair in Pharmaceutical Innovation at King’s for 5 years. Professor Martini is also Visiting Professor at the University of Bradford. Prior to his tenure in academia, Professor Martini spent over 17 years working at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals, Roche Products Ltd. and Shire Pharmaceuticals working in a variety of technical, commercial, innovation based and medical affairs roles, directing groups in the United States, Europe and emerging markets.