Ms Victoria Steele

Ms Victoria Steele has accumulated more than 25 years of hands‑on pharmacy practice across community, primary‑care and secondary‑care environments. After graduating with a BPharm (Hons) from the University of Nottingham, she entered the profession as a pre‑registration pharmacist in 1999 and quickly progressed to roles such as Pharmacy Manager, Area Professional Support Pharmacist and Clinical Governance Pharmacist within the Co‑Operative Pharmacy network. In these positions she was responsible for the daily dispensing workflow, supervision of multidisciplinary teams and the implementation of safety‑critical processes, including controlled‑drug management and incident‑reporting systems.

Since 2012 her focus has shifted to senior clinical‑governance responsibilities. As Head of Clinical Governance and Professional Standards for McKesson UK (which incorporated LloydsPharmacy), she rebuilt a low‑performing team into a high‑performing, award‑winning group and oversaw the launch of the SaferCare patient‑safety programme that now underpins pharmacy practice across the organisation. Promotion to Superintendent Pharmacist gave her personal accountability for the safety of over 10 million patients and 17 000 staff, supervising a network of 1 400 pharmacies that dispense roughly 150 million prescriptions each year. Most recently, from May 2023 to July 2024, Ms Steele served as Clinical Director and Chief Pharmacist for Hallo Healthcare Group, holding fiduciary and clinical duties at board level and retaining personal responsibility for the care of two million patients served by the company’s outpatient, mental‑health and prison‑service pharmacy services.

Ms Steele’s clinical interests centre on medication safety, patient‑centred care and the development of robust governance frameworks that protect public health. She has acted as Medication Safety Officer for LloydsPharmacy, championing the integration of safety‑culture principles into everyday practice through incident‑reporting systems, near‑miss capture and controlled‑drug discrepancy management. Her role as Safeguarding Lead and Caldicott Guardian for the same organisation demonstrates a sustained commitment to protecting vulnerable patients and ensuring the secure handling of personal health information.

A further passion for Ms Steele is the contribution of community pharmacy to public‑health promotion. As a board member of Bowel Cancer UK’s Development Board, she helps shape strategies that leverage pharmacy networks to raise awareness of bowel‑cancer risk factors and screening programmes. Her elected positions as Chair of the Community Pharmacy Patient Safety Group and Chair of the Pharmacists Defence Association Joint Committee underline her dedication to influencing national policy and practice standards.

Ms Steele has held senior management and board‑level appointments across several large pharmacy organisations. At Hallo Healthcare Group she served on the board, providing strategic direction while overseeing the restructuring of the company’s outpatient services. Previously, as Director of Clinical Governance and Superintendent Pharmacist for the LloydsPharmacy division, she guided the spin‑out of assets following Aurelius’s acquisition of McKesson UK, managing confidential negotiations with the GPhC, MHRA, CQC, NHS England and the devolved governments to ensure uninterrupted service for ten million patients and the retention of roughly 10 000 pharmacy staff. Throughout her career she has been responsible for large‑scale change management, performance monitoring and the delivery of professional‑standards programmes across national pharmacy networks.