principal consultant in national health ...

40 years in the field...

SHPA, NSW TAG, NPS, CEC, and more...

Ms Penny Thornton

Penny Thornton B Pharm, FSHP, Cert. Health Econ. trained in Victoria as a pharmaceutical chemist, and has worked in the acute care pharmacy services sector for 40 years. She has worked in hospital pharmacies of many sizes and locations, from rural single practitioner services to the largest acute care hospital services in three States of Australia. She was most recently Pharmacy Services Manager, the Children's Hospital Westmead and prior to this position held the Deputy Director of Pharmacy position at Westmead Hospital.

She has maintained close association and Fellowship of the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia (SHPA) for many years, working as an officer with State Branch Committees in three States (Vic, ACT, NSW) and has been a Federal Councillor and National Vice President. Since 2005, as Australian representative for the Institute for Safe Medication Practices USA (ISMP), she has edited the Medication Safety section in the Journal of Pharmacy Practice and Research, SHPA. She holds the Glaxo Medal of Merit for Hospital Pharmacy (2001).

Her role in hospital pharmacy management led to many skills, primarily related to hospital formulary management and Drug and Therapeutics Committee systems managing equitable public access to high cost drugs. She has studied Health Economics with Monash University, gaining a certificate with distinction.

University lectures have been conducted in medication safety, health informatics and aseptic pharmacy-based IV admixture services. Penny is also a certified assessor for the Charles Sturt Hospital Pharmacy Assistance (Technician) Certificate course.

She has been an active member of the Australian Safety and Quality Council, Medication Safety Taskforce, assisting in publication of the Second National Report in Medication Safety. She has also been a member of the recent Australian Commission of on Safety and Quality in Health Care Scoping Study.  For four years she filled the representational role for represented Western Sydney on the Clinical Council of the Clinical Excellence Commission, NSW. After acting for many years as the voluntary Australian representative of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, USA, she represented Australia at the first International Meeting of the International Network for Safe Medication Practices in Salamanca, Spain. This attendance led to a strong lobby for formation of the ACSQHC Medication Safety agenda which has become a successful nationally representative voice.

For four years she filled the representational role for Western Sydney on the Clinical Council of the Clinical Excellence Commission, NSW.

Her assistance in Australian-isation of the ISMP Medication Safety Self-Assessment tool has been a key strategy for NSW, now in the process of national adoption.

She maintains a focussed interest in health informatics as it relates to medication management in acute care and has been a member of the National MediConnect Taskforce and chair of the short-lived Jurisdictional implementation committee, building the pilot model of the personal medication health record for all Australians.

Through her employment with the NSW Department of Health, as Principal Advisor in Medication Safety, she has taken a representational role in the Oversight Committee of the National Medication Chart (NIMCO) and in the Paediatric Pharmaceuticals Working Group of the Health Policy Priorities Principal Committee. Working for NSW Health, she has been prime author of several recent key policy directives and information bulletins.

She has published widely in the Medication Safety areas - see