Louis Ovonlen

Lead Pharmacist & aCCIO

South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust

Biography: Louis Ovonlen is the Lead Pharmacist for Adult Community Services at South West London and St Georges Mental Health Trust. He is also the Associate Chief Clinical Information Officers serving the Trust Specialist Service Line. He has over 25 years’ experience as a specialist mental health pharmacist and has a passion for development of pharmacy services within community mental health. He promotes innovation in this area and is currently leading Pharmacy Community Transformation for the South West London and St Georges Mental Health Trust. Most recently, he led the development of the MindMeds App to support education, choice and adherence of mental health medications.

South West London ICL Digital Pioneer Fellowship project summary: My project is to support procurement and roll-out of an Electronic Prescription Transfer System for community mental health teams in SWLSTG. Currently, the trust utilises an electronic prescribing system which provides prescription to our service users in person or by post. Having an electronic transfer system allows for sending prescription securely to community pharmacies of patient choice thus improving access to medication. This system will reduce cost & waste, improve safety, promote governance, sustainability and free up clinician/administrative time with the current system. Furthermore, it will provide parity for our service users in relation to people with physical health counterparts.

Estimated number of patients / staff impacted by the project: All SWLSTG Community Teams and Patients

Goal(s) for time on the South West London ICL Digital Pioneer Fellowship: To gain insights and exposure to digital health sector and the activities occurring across SWL. Also, to glean knowledge and skills from professionals in this arena and explore new ways of working within my service. Furthermore, I am hoping to become a champion for digital health within my organisation.