Speakers
David Sapsford
Dr Justine Scanlan
Louise Savic
Jonny Looms
Reena Mehta
Stream 2
This session explores critical aspects of drug safety in ICU, starting with the latest evidence on managing ingested poisons—from gastric decontamination to enhanced elimination techniques—with practical insights for complex toxicology cases. A military expert will then discuss clinical management of chemical and biological warfare agents, including Novichok and emerging threats. Next, we’ll examine national medicines shortage management, governance by DHSC and NHSE, and the global supply chain’s impact, using ICU and anaesthesia medicines as real-world examples. Finally, the session will address drug allergy labelling—focusing on penicillin allergy—and its effects on surgical and ICU outcomes. Emerging research on delabelling in critical care will be discussed, offering practical approaches to safer prescribing. Learning Objectives:
· Understand national systems for medicine shortage mitigation and their relevance to critical care
· Apply evidence-based toxicology principles to the management of poisoning in ICU
· Become familiar with presentation and management of chemical and biological weapons.
· Evaluate the risks of inaccurate allergy labels and opportunities for delabelling in critical care
Chairperson: Tom Billyard, Reena Mehta and David Sapsford
Jonathan Looms - Key updates in managing poisonings: methods to reduce absorption and enhance elimination of poisons.
Andy Johnstone - Managing Chemical and Biological agent poisoning in critical care - lessons from Salisbury
Louise Savic - Challenging Drug Allergy Labels: Relevance for ICU and Surgical Patients
Justine Scanlan - Out of Stock: Managing Medicines Shortages in Critical Care
David has been practicing critical care pharmacy since 2003 and now leads a team of ten pharmacists and a pharmacy technician covering the 59 adult critical care beds at Cambridge University Hospitals NHSFT. His particular interests include safe, effective use and stewardship of antimicrobials, and management of pain and delirium in ICU patients.
David is deputy chair of the Intensive Care Society Pharmacy Professional Advisory Group and is delighted to count himself as inaugural ICS Leadership Programme alumni.
David is a member of the ICS Zermatt to Verbier Ski Mountaineering Team for 2024. For more information or to sponsor David, please head to https://www.justgiving.com/page/dfavidsapsford-z2v24
Dr Justine Scanlan is Head of the NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service (SPS) and chair of the joint DHSC and NHSE Medicines Shortages Response Group (MSRG). Through her leadership of the NHS SPS, the service played a pivotal role in the recent COVID -19 pandemic, overseeing both the allocation and distribution of medicines to the NHS and providing the professional expertise to ensure the successful deployment of the COVID-19 vaccination programme. Justine is an experienced pharmacist with a successful track record in leading and delivering new developments in pharmacy services, nationally and in NHS hospitals.
Dr Louise Savic is a consultant anaesthetist with a clinical and research interest in drug allergy and perioperative anaphylaxis. She is currently a doctoral fellow with the NIHR, investigating drug allergy in surgical patients. Working closely with the British Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology and Clinical Immunology Professional Network, she is leading a cross speciality working party for improving allergy care among surgical patients, including the implementation of routine penicillin allergy delabelling
Dr Jonny Looms is a senior registrar in intensive care in the Thames Valley deanery with a special interest in clinical toxicology, and has completed fellowships with the West Midlands Poisons Unit and NPIS Birmingham. He is a lecturer on the postgraduate MSc Toxicology program at the University of Birmingham.
He is passionate about improving the interface between intensive care and toxicology, and won last year’s SOA Cauldron Award arguing that every intensive care unit should have a clinical lead for the poisoned patient.
Reena is a Consultant Pharmacist in Critical Care at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London and Chair of the Intensive Care Society’s Learning Division.
Her specialist areas of interest are anti-microbial stewardship, medicines use in extra-corporeal circuits and health inequalities.
She has worked in Critical Care for over 15 years, and has co-authored and provided specialist input nationally into areas such as pharmacy critical care workforce, clinical guidelines, and advanced critical care training. Reena is an Associate Editor for the Journal of the Intensive Care Society and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at King’s College London. Within her organisation, she is a Principal Investigator on a number of CRN Portfolio studies
Reena is also the Pharmacy Lead for the South East London ICS - Critical Care/ODN and a member of the United Kingdom Adult Critical Care Pharmacy Leadership Forum. She has recently completed an MSc in Health Economics, Policy & Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Lt Col Andy Johnston is a Military Intensivist and Internal Medicine Consultant at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine based at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham. For the last three years he has been the UK Military's senior medical advisor in Counter-Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Medicine, preparing UK military and civilian medical staff to deal with casualties caused by unconventional weapons.