Simon Maxwell is Professor of Student Learning/Clinical Pharmacology and Director of Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics teaching at the University of Edinburgh, where he has been active in developing e-Learning strategies to support education in this area. His clinical responsibilities include supervision of acute medical admissions and the management of outpatients at increased cardiovascular risk. He is Chair of the British Pharmacological Society (BPS) Prescribing Committee and was lead author of the core curriculum for CPT teaching in UK medical schools. He is Chair of the European Association of CPT (EACPT) Education Committee and Secretary of the International Union of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacology (IUPHAR) Education Section.

He has recently been a member of the NICE drug appraisals committee, is currently a member of the Scottish Medicines Consortium, the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s (MHRA) Pharmacovigilance Expert Advisory Committee and is Medical Director of the Scottish Centre for Adverse Reactions to Drugs (CARDS). He was formerly Vice-President of the BPS and is a fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians in London and Edinburgh and of the Higher Education Academy. He is Clinical lead for the Prescribe project, a joint collaboration between the Department of Health, Medical Schools Council (MSC) and BPS to deliver a national eLearning solution to develop safe and effective prescribing amongst UK medical students. He is Medical Director of the Prescribing Skills Assessment, a joint initiative by the BPS and MSC to produce a national assessment of prescribing for all UK medical students. He is also part of an international group developing an electronic Summary of Product Characteristics (European Medicine’s Agency) and a UK group tasked to develop unified prescribing documentation (Academy of Medical Royal Colleges).