Pinkie Chambers

As a clinical academic pharmacist, Pinkie Chambers’ vision and passion is to improve patient experience and outcomes for those receiving chemotherapy. 

Since completing her MPharm at the University of Manchester in 2002, Pinkie has held various roles, including developing new oncology clinic pharmacy services at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and as lead pharmacist for London Cancer, a partnership of academic, charity and NHS cancer specialists. 

She co-chairs the UK Chemotherapy Board; is joint audit and research lead for the British Oncology Pharmacy Association (BOPA); and is chair of the Chemotherapy Expert Reference Group at the North Central London Cancer Alliance.

Pinkie is a leading proponent of practice-based research and a role model for how pharmacy can enhance the evidence base and drive improvements in patient care. Producing research, evaluations and improvement work has always been a central component of how Pinkie approaches her work. After progressing into a lead pharmacist role supporting ten hospitals across London, she began to see practice inconsistencies and instances where the core evidence was missing. The capabilities to provide that evidence were also lacking, so Pinkie decided she had to become the person to fill that gap. 

With the support and encouragement of mentors, this instinct for improvement work was able to flourish and Pinkie successfully pursued the National Institute for Health and Care Research pathway towards a clinical academic career and completed her PhD in 2021.

As a clinical pharmacist, Pinkie’s research is driven by the challenges she sees daily within her practice role. An impressive aspect of Pinkie’s nomination was her drive to not only identify and solve problems but also to see solutions implemented, with much of her research resulting in changes to clinical practice. An example of this relates to her analysis of whether people with obesity and cancer were being dosed correctly, resulting in her first published paper. 

“It was a piece of evidence that really needed doing. Before, patient doses were being capped if they were too tall or too overweight, meaning they were potentially missing out on treatment unnecessarily,” she says. “It took four years to complete the work and, in that time, no one else had looked at these questions.” 

Pinkie was able to successfully disseminate the evidence by first communicating her results to clinical triallists to inform their future trial designs, and it was subsequently adopted into international policy.

Pinkie is an influential member of the pharmacy research community and is skilled in collaboration and building networks. She also uses her research profile and clinical background to support other aspiring pharmacists looking to start their own research journeys. Pinkie is actively building capacity for pharmacist research in the UK, through her active contributions to the cancer pharmacy community and by providing mentorship to a growing number of pharmacy researchers. 

Publications

P Chambers, MD Forster, A Patel et al. Development and validation of a risk score (Delay-7) to predict the occurrence of a treatment delay following cycle 1 chemotherapy. ESMO Open 2023;8(1):100743. doi: 10.1016/j.esmoop.2022.100743

Foreman E, Polwart C, Walker A et al. Histamine-2 (H2) antagonists can be safely removed from standard paclitaxel premedication regimens. Br J Clin Pharmacol 2022;88(9):4191-4198. doi: 10.1111/bcp.15363

Chazan, G, Jupp, J., Bauters, T., Duncan, N., Weddle, K. J., Nomura, H., Chambers P… & Alexander, M. (2021). Impact of coronavirus of 2019 on the delivery of pharmacy services to patients with cancer: An international survey of oncology pharmacy practitioners. Journal of Oncology Pharm DOI: 10.1177/10781552211048892

Watson MS, Chambers P, Shiu KK et al. Using deep learning with demographic and laboratory values from baseline to cycle 2 to predict subsequent renal and hepatic function. Annals of Oncology 2021;32:S1250. doi: 10.1016/j.annonc.2021.08.747

Chambers P, Wei L, Kipps E et al. Evidence to guide the optimal timing for pre-chemotherapy blood tests for early breast, colorectal cancer and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Cancer Medicine 2021; 10(22):7996-8004. doi: 10.1002/cam4.4316.

Joharatnam-Hogan N, Chambers P, Dhatariya K et al. A guideline for the outpatient management of glycaemic control in people with cancer. Diabetes Med 2022;39(1):e14636. doi:10.1111/dme.14636 

Chow MC, Chambers P Singleton G et al. Global changes to the chemotherapy service during the covid-19 pandemic. Journal of Oncology Pharmacy Practice 2021;27(5):1073-1079. doi: 10.1177/10781552211015767

Jamieson L, Forster MD, Zaki K et al. Immunotherapy and associated immune-related adverse events at a large UK centre: a mixed methods study. BMC Cancer 2020;20(1):743. doi: 10.1186/s12885-020-07215-3

Chambers P, Man KC, Lui VWY et al. Understanding Molecular Testing Uptake Across Tumor Types in Eight Countries: Results from a Multinational Cross-Sectional Survey.  JCO Oncology Practice 2020;16(8):e770-e778. doi: 10.1200/JOP.19.00507

Chambers P, Jani Y, Wei L et al. Patient Factors and their Impact on Neutropenic Events: A Systematic review and meta-analysis. Supportive Care in Cancer. 2019;27(7):2413-2424. doi: 10.1007/s00520-019-04773-6

Payne H, Jamieson L, Prentice M, et al. Preferences for Toxicity Monitoring of Patients on Abiraterone Acetate Plus Prednisone. Clinical Oncology 2018;30(10):674-675. doi:10.1016/j.clon.2018.07.023

Vindrola-Padros C, Brage E & Chambers P. On the road and away from home: a systematic review of the travel experiences of cancer patients and their families. Supportive Care in Cancer 2018;26(9):2973-2982. doi: 10.1007/s00520-018-4266-2

Oakley C, Chambers P, R Board et al. Good practice guideline: Promoting Early Identification of Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapies Side Effects: Two Approaches. Cancer Nursing Practice. doi: 10.7748/CNP.15.9.19.S20

Chambers P, Sellars L & Payne H. Medicines Optimisation in Elderly Cancer Patients. Trends in Urology and Men’s Health. doi: 10.1002/tre.515

Chambers P, Daniels SH, Thompson LC et al. American Society of Clinical Oncology Guideline on Weight-Based Dosing and its Impact on Trial Design. J Clin Oncol 2012;30(31):3897-8. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2012.44.4125

Chambers P, Daniels SH, Thompson LC et al. Chemotherapy Dose Reductions in Obese Patients with Colorectal Cancer. Ann Oncol 23(3):748-753. doi: 10.1093/annonc/mdr277