Amandeep Doll: ‘I can be a role model of inclusive leadership’

There’s a lot going on in Amandeep Doll’s first year as director for England at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) — not least, the historic transition to royal college status, currently expected to happen in April 2026. This period has also included the announcement of the NHS ten-year plan, and we will soon see the first cohort of pharmacists registering as independent prescribers from the get-go of their careers, alongside all the business-as-usual work. However, Doll clearly relishes the diversity of her job.

“I remember having a conversation with someone who said pharmacy, as a career, is very linear, whereas my career was a little bit ‘here, there, and everywhere’,” she says as we chat.

“They said, ‘your career doesn’t make any sense’. I feel like this role makes it make sense.”  

Her energy is palpable, even through a laptop screen. I start by asking why she was drawn to the director for England role. 

For those who don’t know you already, could you introduce yourself and explain what attracted you to this role at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society?

I started my pharmacy career as a Saturday girl when I was doing my A-levels. I wanted to study pharmacy at university, so I thought I’d get a head start on what it was going to be like. After graduating, I worked for seven years in community pharmacy before deciding to go into hospital pharmacy, where I stayed for about eight years, going through the ranks from junior pharmacist to advanced pharmacist in education and training at Kettering General Hospital in Northamptonshire. 

During that time, I developed an interest in workforce development, and that’s how I ended up doing a clinical fellowship at Health Education England. My role was to nationalise the e-portfolio so that foundation trainees could upload their evidence into an electronic system. My ambition at the time was to work up to becoming a chief pharmacist, but life happens, doesn’t it? And I really enjoyed being able to make national policy real for people. So, in 2018, I took up a role at the RPS as a regional liaison pharmacist, where we introduced system leadership, working with what are now known as integrated care boards (ICBs) pilot sites, helping to build better relationships between community pharmacy, hospital and GP practice around medicines optimisation and medicine management. 

At the end of 2019, I left the RPS for a while and became a trainee programme director in north-central London, testing whether we could implement an early-careers pharmacist multi-sector programme. I returned to the RPS at the end of 2020 as head of professional belonging and engagement. Inclusion and diversity were always a passion of mine, and here was an opportunity to be able to do it more formally. 

I’ve worked in different parts of the system, looked at workforce development and policy, and I felt like the role of director for England was a natural step in being able to consolidate all of that experience.  

Bringing the different parts of the pharmacy system together, my different experiences, that’s why this role appealed to me. And at the core of it, it’s about the patient — this role is about helping pharmacists maximise their impact on care.

So, it felt like a very natural growth for me as a leader. And all the things l’ve encouraged other people to do, around women in leadership roles, diversity and leadership … well, I felt like I had to walk the talk. I’m not good at taking my own advice, but I thought I should take my own advice this time. 

Paul Stuart

How important is the transition to a Royal College of Pharmacy, for members, patients and the wider profession? 

The big change with the royal college is that it re-focuses our work for patient benefit. As a royal college, it’s going to be part of one of our charitable aims from the get-go. 

Having royal college status really does strengthen our authority, our professional standards, education, credentialing and clinical leadership. We are going to be seen as having a more influential voice within that, strengthening our ability to influence policy and standards across healthcare. All of this leads to advancing pharmacists to provide excellent patient care, and our members will feel more supported having practical advice for their careers, clear guidance on emerging clinical roles and being able to advocate for our profession in a stronger way. And we’ll be more visible with other healthcare professionals — having a Royal College of Pharmacy, just even in the name, makes a big difference.

What are team England’s priorities this year?

We have established a two-year Great Britain-wide work plan, which is aligned to our vision. But the biggest thing for England that’s come out in the past year is the publication of the NHS ten-year health plan. We’re going to be making sure that our vision and the ten-year plan align. 

One of the key things that’s come out of the ten-year plan is neighbourhood teams, so we want to make sure that pharmacy teams across the whole system are embedded within neighborhood teams right from the beginning — that they’re seen as a core part of service delivery. 

This year, we’ll be working across the health system in collaboration with other pharmacy organisations, and also organisations like the Royal College of GPs and the British Medical Association, to establish a more joined-up approach. It’s nothing new; we’ve always had a collective approach, so it’d be really good to be able to take that forward in a more formalised way. 

Part of our work will also mean looking at skill mix: how can we utilise pharmacy technicians, so all members of the pharmacy team can focus on delivering the best possible care for patients. For me, that means pharmacists using the full breadth of their training and expertise. This year, we are going to have a whole new cohort of independent prescribers. They must be enabled to prescribe safely and that assurance is embedded into practice to give confidence to clinicians, patients and the rest of the multidisciplinary team. 

We need to advocate for a nationally funded prescribing service so that people who are trained up to be prescribers are actually using their skills in practice. 

And then, how do we also address wider workforce issues, like the number of designated prescribing practitioners; how do we support career pathways and support advanced practice? 

The other thing that links to the ten-year plan is digital and AI, and that’s another focus for us this year. We built the foundations of this with our policy document last year, but we will be delivering some workshops to really understand the impact of AI on clinical practice, pharmacy practice, science and research and education, and how best to use AI and digital in advancing all of that. But also, what are the risks that we need to be aware of when we’re introducing some of those technologies? 

We’re also working with our chief pharmaceutical officer’s fellow. This year, the fellowship is in partnership with Macmillan. We’ve got a joint fellow, and they are working on reviewing how we can better support oncology patients with long-term conditions and polypharmacy, building on the repeat prescribing toolkit, developed in partnership with the Royal College of GPs.

These are our main things that we want to focus on for the year. But we can’t ignore the fact that, alongside all of this, we need to be sensitive to the fact that NHS England is going to be abolished. ICBs are undergoing structural changes, so we need to consider how we support our pharmacy teams who are directly impacted by all of this, how we make sure expertise from those teams is not lost but instead redirected into the system. We have also got the supervision changes: our professional standards and guidance team are working on producing guidance, and that will have an impact on how we work as pharmacy and where responsibilities sit. 

There are also ongoing pieces of work around workforce wellbeing, health inequalities, medicines shortages and, of course, inclusion, diversity, differential attainment. So quite a lot! 

How is your background in equality, diversity and inclusion going to feed into your new role?

For me, equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) isn’t really a separate thing. It’s part of who I am and how I am as a leader, and it’s a core part of me. In this role, I will be bringing those principles in and making sure that everything that we do — so all the work streams I’ve just described — represent the different parts of the profession. We’re giving people platforms who are sometimes underrepresented or overlooked. For me, it’s something that will always be central to what we do. 

It was also one of the other reasons why I decided to take the job. It’s really important that we still have a dedicated workstream, because there’s so many issues that need addressing, but EDI needs to be a core part of how we do things — a golden thread through everything.

Being the director of England, I can be a role model of inclusive leadership and embedding that across the system. Not from the sidelines, encouraging people to do it, but actually demonstrating that this is how we should be doing it — it’s not an afterthought. 

It’s still in our Great Britain work plan and that was quite intentional. I’m really pleased that the royal college is committed to continuing this piece of work as a standalone workstream, as one of our commitments.

Paul Stuart

You’ve given evidence at significant House of Lords and parliamentary evidence sessions (on medicines shortages and neighbourhood health teams) recently. How important are these in terms of advocacy? 

They’re probably the biggest things that I’ve been able to contribute to so far as director of England. It’s really important to have a seat around the table and be invited to give evidence on such important topics. Because you’re talking right to the people that are going to be helping shape policy or writing recommendations.

With medicine shortages, it was a long time coming, because James Davies, the previous director for England, set the wheels for production of the report in motion. Then came the House of Lords inquiry into medicine shortages, which led to the evidence session.  

And then with the Health Select Committee, sitting next to GP and nursing colleagues to talk about workforce issues as a multi-disciplinary team was really good. Sometimes, primary care can be seen as a bit GP-centric. So, it really does signal that pharmacists are a core part of that delivery, and we have the opportunity to advocate for what we want to see.

In preparing for these sessions, do you go out to members to gather evidence or case studies? 

Yes, there’s a lot of preparation, reaching out to individuals who are working in those areas and then using that intelligence to shape our approach. This is where working in practice really does help. I experienced medicine shortages as a specialist clinical pharmacist, so I know the impact that has on my day-to-day, and also on the patient. It’s great to be able to use my own experience but also to link up with networks and reach out to pharmacists to say, ‘What other things would you like to see, and how can we then translate that into advocacy?’ 

We need our members to help us shape it. 

What is your message for members reading this, at this significant time for the Society, soon to be royal college? 

I’m very conscious of using this role to influence change, and I want to say that I’m really grateful to be given this opportunity. I’m very lucky. But I’m also conscious of using it the best that I can, to be able to influence change in a positive way, advocating for pharmacy in multidisciplinary spaces where we perhaps haven’t always been seen as the core part of the team. 

I’ve inherited a great team. I’ve worked with them for years, and I know that they do such great work. But I am very much in listening mode. 

So, if people want to reach out and help me understand what it’s like from their perspective; I’m all ears. We are here for our members, so if there’s anything that people feel like they’re not seeing, or that we’re missing, then you need to feed that back to us, so we can hear it and it can help shape how we’re thinking. We have a dedicated England inbox: england@rpharms.com.