Dr Ian Maidment

Professor Ian Maidment is a professor in clinical pharmacy at Aston Pharmacy School His inaugural lecture will explain why patients struggle with taking medication and present possible solutions to the problem Professor Maidment is a former practising pharmacist and an expert in medication optimisation and management in mental health and dementia. Professor Ian Maidment, professor in clinical pharmacy at Aston Pharmacy School, will give a public lecture about his life’s work on 5 February 2025. In his inaugural lecture, Professor Maidment will reflect on his journey from a childhood in Kent to becoming a leading researcher in clinical pharmacy. After more than two decades working in the NHS, in community pharmacy, mental health, dementia care, and leadership roles, he joined Aston University in 2012. His research focuses on the real-world challenges of medication optimisation for patients, carers, and healthcare professionals. The title of Professor Maidment’s lecture is ‘Medication adherence: Why it matters and how we can improve it’. Every year, the UK spends nearly £21 billion on medicines. Yet up to half of people with long-term conditions do not take their medication as prescribed—a problem known as non-adherence. This has profound clinical consequences and significant financial implications for the NHS. Professor Maidment will draw on his experience to explore how factors such as medication burden and side-effects influence adherence, the challenges posed by conditions such as dementia and severe mental illness, the role of pharmacy in supporting adherence and why tackling non-adherence requires a system-wide approach. He will also offer practical solutions to one of healthcare’s most persistent problems. Professor Maidment said: “We need to understand why patients struggle to take their medication and then develop and test solutions that work well.” The lecture on Thursday 5 February 2026 will take place at Aston Business School. In-person tickets are available from Eventbrite. The public lecture will begin at 18:00 GMT with refreshments served from 17:30 GMT. It is free of charge and will be followed by a drinks reception. The lecture will also be streamed online.

The e-learning resource, Supporting people living with long COVID, was developed by the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) It is designed to help community pharmacy teams build their skills, knowledge and confidence The programme offers video and audio resources, practical consultation examples and strategies for supporting individuals. Professor Ian Maidment at Aston Pharmacy School has been involved in a project with the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) to develop a new e-learning programme for community pharmacists, called Supporting people living with long COVID. The programme is designed to help community pharmacy teams build their skills, knowledge and confidence to support people managing the long-term effects of COVID-19. It was developed with researchers undertaking the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR)-funded PHARM-LC research study: What role can community PHARMacy play in the support of people with long COVID? During the development of the e-learning resource, as well as with Professor Maidment, CPPE worked in collaboration with researchers from Keele University, the University of Kent, Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust and lechyd Cyhoeddus Cymru (Public Health Wales). The research draws on lived experience of long COVID, as well as the views of community pharmacy teams on what learning they need to better support people living with the condition. This new programme offers video and audio resources, practical consultation examples and strategies for supporting individuals through lifestyle advice, person-centred care and access to wider services. Professor Maidment said: “As an ex-community pharmacist, community pharmacy can have a key role in helping people living with long COVID. The approach is in line with the NHS 10 Year Health Plan, which aims to develop the role of community pharmacy in supporting people with long-term conditions.” Professor Carolyn Chew-Graham, professor of general practice research at Keele University, said: “Two million people in the UK are living with long COVID, a condition people are still developing, which may not be readily recognised, because routine testing for acute infection has largely stopped. For many, the pharmacy is the first place they seek advice about persisting symptoms following viral infection. The pharmacy team, therefore, has the potential to play a really important role in supporting people with long COVID. This learning programme provides evidence-based information to develop the confidence of pharmacy staff in talking to people with long COVID. Developed with people living with long COVID, the programme’s key message is to believe and empathise with people about their symptoms.” Visit www.cppe.ac.uk/programmes/l/covid-e-01 to access the e-learning programme. This project is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) Programme (Grant Reference Number NIHR205384).

The HOPE-AO project led by the University of Plymouth will look at the potential harms of overprescribed pain medication in older people in the UK Aston University’s Professor Ian Maidment will bring his expertise in pharmacy and work with patient groups on medicine optimisation The project has been funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) A new study led by the University of Plymouth will explore chronic pain prescribing in older adults across the UK, with the aim of understanding whether current treatments and processes meet their needs. The HOPE-AO: Helping to Optimise Pain control in the Elderly experiencing Analgesic Overprescribing project is being supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and includes Aston University’s Professor Ian Maidment. It will investigate whether certain groups of the older population are more likely to have analgesic (pain relief) medication overprescribed to them, and any side effects or other harms these medications can pose if taken for long periods. It aims to identify alternative treatment solutions to reduce the use of unnecessary pain medicines, working with patients to develop a list of acceptable strategies that could be tested and implemented across the UK. Around 4m older people across the UK live with varying degrees of chronic pain as a result of conditions including arthritis, diabetes or frailty. While some people benefit from pain relief medicines, many end up receiving long-term repeated prescriptions – for medications ranging from paracetamol and ibuprofen to opioids and antidepressants – for weeks, months or years at a time. The project is being led by researchers from the University of Plymouth, working with colleagues at the University of Exeter, Aston University, University of Aberdeen and the North East London Foundation NHS Trust. It is funded by through a Programme Development Grant from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The project team comprises experts in the care of older people – including healthcare researchers, nurses, consultants, GPs, pharmacists and psychiatrists working across the UK – as well as medical statisticians and health economists. It also involves an advisory group of patients with lived experience of receiving repeat prescriptions for pain medication. During the project, the team will speak to patients aged 65 and over with a history of chronic pain for which they are taking, or have taken, medication and families who cared for and supported relatives with chronic pain. They will also speak to healthcare professionals who are either prescribing or supporting older adults taking medication for chronic pain management. Alongside this work, the team will analyse anonymised healthcare data to understand more about older adults who are prescribed medication for chronic pain. This includes patterns in prescribing, health and demographic factors associated with pain medication use, and potential health outcomes, and will help identify those likely to benefit most from support. Professor Maidment, from Aston Pharmacy School, will bring his expertise in pharmacy, medication use in day-to-day clinical practice and working with diverse groups of patients to support medication optimisation. He said: “From my experience in community pharmacy, the use of pain medicines is very common in older people. We need to work with older people to understand how we can help older people to use other potentially safer approaches.” Patricia Schofield, professor of clinical nursing at the University of Plymouth and one of the study’s chief investigators, said: “Very often, older people are told by a doctor that the most effective means of treating a health condition is through some form of pain relief. But they often don’t get any form of follow-up appointment and, as a generation, are less likely to seek one as they either feel pain is part of the ageing process or they don’t wish to be seen as a burden. The result is that they end up getting repeat prescriptions, potentially for pain medications they no longer need and also at significant cost to the NHS. “This study will give us a clearer understanding of the scale of the issue which we can use to develop ways of benefitting patients and their families, and the healthcare professionals working to treat and support them.” Victoria Abbott-Fleming MBE, founder of the charity Burning Nights CRPS Support, is the chair of the Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement group for the HOPE-AO study. It will be made up of several adults over the age of 65 who live with chronic pain and have received repeat prescriptions for pain medication. Victoria has herself lived for more than 20 years with a chronic pain condition, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), and set up Burning Nights to support those affected by it on a day-to-day basis and their families. She is also chair of the Expert Patient and Carer Committee at the British Pain Society. She said: “I’m excited to support this study that places the voices of older adults and their carers at the heart of pain management. All too often, those living with chronic pain – especially older adults – are prescribed medication without regular review or consideration of alternative approaches. This study is a vital step towards more informed and balanced care, helping ensure that older people living with chronic pain are not just treated, but truly heard and supported.”