Meet Professor Sarah Pontefract

I am Deputy Head of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Birmingham in the School of Health Sciences.

I started working at the university in 2010, in a short-term role developing eLearning modules to support the prescribing competency of junior doctors in the West Midlands. Commissioned by the NHS, I continue to lead this programme of work today with an amazing team alongside me. SCRIPT is now a national web-based resource freely available to healthcare students, healthcare trainees and NHS staff across the UK. Since 2010, it has supported over 300,000 registered users, scaled up nationally and expanded to 145 modules for different healthcare professions. As part of this work, I also supervise research into the impact of the learning on healthcare professional knowledge, practice and prescribing behaviour.

As a registered pharmacist, I have mostly worked in the hospital sector and in acute mental health. My teaching reflects this, aligned to hospital practice, mental health, and medicines safety, particularly safe prescribing. I teach across all years of the Pharmacy programme and lead Safe and Effective Prescribing for Medicine.

Externally, I sit on the Medical Schools Council national standard setting group for the Prescribing Safety Assessment, an exam taken by medical students to assess their prescribing knowledge and safety.

In 2013, I was awarded an NIHR Doctoral Research Fellowship to complete my PhD at Birmingham, spending five years investigating how electronic prescribing systems shape communication between pharmacists and physicians in hospital settings. My research now focuses on medicines safety and the optimal use of therapeutics, particularly the effectiveness of technologies in reducing medication errors and supporting better clinical decision-making. I supervise undergraduate and postgraduate research projects aligned to these topics.

My interest in optimal therapeutics, mental health, and the regulatory landscape around medicines eventually led me to co-found a food supplement business with my sister. Chirpy launched in May 2026 to support the mental wellbeing of children aged six and over, combining food supplements with "Headucation" resources for parents. Although external to the University, students have the opportunity to do their elective work experience with me to gain an understanding of the food supplement space and how this aligns to their work as a pharmacist.

What started as an 18-month contract has turned into 16 years. Birmingham is a brilliant place to work and study, surrounded by curious minds and genuine innovation. I've now been here longer than the School of Pharmacy itself, which was established in 2011!

Here you will train alongside other healthcare professionals and be taught by great minds, with extensive placement experience that brings your learning to life as we develop you into the pharmacist of the future.

I'm looking forward to welcoming you to Birmingham.