Bringing Academia, Healthcare and Industry Together to Help Make Great Things Happen to Support Patients

Professor David Wright and Jan Flynn worked together on projects for over 18 years to support patients who struggle to swallow medication, to highlight the issues surrounding medicines management and positive clinical outcomes. They joined forces to set up ChangeMed Ltd in 2021, to bring their expertise to a wider audience of both industry and healthcare organisations. ChangeMed can help bring industry, academia, the NHS and other healthcare providers together to understand each other’s needs and challenges. We work on a wide range of projects, not just in the “swallowing difficulties” arena and have a wide range of contacts in companies and institutions.

Key People

Professor David Wright Having trained in both hospital and community, David Wright started his career as a community pharmacist in York. He returned to university to undertake a PhD investigating the community pharmacist’s role in care homes. After 3 years of working closely with 20 care homes, managers and general practitioners he completed his PhD and became a lecturer in pharmacy practice.

David’s research interests have always focused around medicines optimisation in older people.  Swallowing difficulties is one area where he believes healthcare professionals need to work together to enable patients and carers to use their medicines safely. He has created a website www.swallowingdifficulties.com to help healthcare professionals to make informed decisions when administering medicines to someone with dysphagia and a Massive Open On-line FutureLearn Course ‘Medicines and Dysphagia’ to train healthcare professionals, patients and carers on the subject. first became interested in medicines management in patients with dysphagia (difficulty swallowing) in the early 1990’s when working as a pharmacist supplying medication to care homes. He realised that many patients were having their medications crushed or manipulated in some way in order for them to take them.

Jan Flynn Jan is a highly experienced pharma, biotech and medical device marketing professional. She has worked in the pharmaceutical/healthcare industry for over 40 years for companies including GSK, Schering-Plough, LIG, Knoll and running her own consultancy. She has worked in toxicology, regulatory affairs, sales, international marketing, medical copywriting, advertising, external affairs, and stakeholder management. This has given her a wide background of experience and during her career she worked on most drug categories as well as many medical devices. She knows the NHS inside out and has worked closely with academia, helping companies, universities, and the NHS work closely together.