Senior Clinical Pharmacist

Job description

Job responsibilities

Repeat prescribing

• Develop and quality-assured improved, safe and efficient repeat prescribing and medication review processes within the practice, and then to evolve and implement changes as required.

• Focused and structured reviews of repeat prescriptions on an individual basis to improve quality and safety and maximise effectiveness and reduce wastage.

• Medication review services via clinics in the practice, domiciliary visit and in residential and nursing homes. These may be face to face or notes based reviews.

Long-Term Conditions and Chronic Disease Management

• Undertake disease focused medication reviews, particularly of high-risk groups (elderly, renal hepatic impairment, and to ensure appropriate compliance with national and local guidelines. This will be via pharmacist lead clinics, telephone and office-based notes reviews.

• Ensure the care for patients taking high risk drugs e.g. DMARDs, anticoagulation, are safe and appropriate

• Telephone advice to patients with LTCs on specific medicines management issues

• Be familiar with, contribute to the development off and work alongside practice ICB long term conditions pathways to ensure consistency and efficiency of systems

• Provide health promotion where appropriate, including flu vaccinations.

Clinical Acute Patient Care

• To undertake initial assessment of common general practice presentations, assisting differentiated patients in complex, urgent or emergency situations, referring to GPs and other healthcare professionals where appropriate.

• To offer telephone advice to patients with acute illness queries and provide information and advice on prescribed or over-the-counter medication on medication regimens, side effects and interactions

Patient facing long-term condition clinics

• See patients in multi morbidity clinics and in partnership with primary healthcare colleagues and implement improvements to patients medicines, including deprescribing.

• Manage own case load and run long term condition clinics where responsible for prescribing as an independent prescriber for conditions where medicines have a large component (e.g. medicine optimisation for stable angina symptom control, warfarin monitoring and dose adjustment for patients requiring longterm anticoagulants).

• Review the on going need for each medicine, a review of monitoring needs and an opportunity to support patients with their medicines taking ensuring they get the best use of their medicines (i.e. medicines optimisation).

Patient-facing and telephone clinical medication review

• Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy and implement own prescribing changes (as an independent prescriber) and order relevant monitoring tests face to face or over the telephone

Patient-facing and telephone care home/residential clinical medication reviews

• Manage own caseload of care home residents. Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy and implement own prescribing changes (as an independent prescriber) and order relevant monitoring tests

• Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration.

Vulnerable/Housebound patients

• Manage vulnerable housebound patients at risk of hospital admission and harm from poor use of medicines.

• Identifying key areas of need for vulnerable patients and formulating care plans

Management of common minor self limiting ailments

• Managing caseload of patients with common minor self limiting ailments while working within a scope of practice and limits of competence

• Signposting and educating patients in the use of non-GP services, such as Pharmacy First and referring to GPs or other healthcare professionals where appropriate

Patient facing and telephone medicines support

• Provide support and advice to patients with medication related questions, queries or concerns

Medicine information to healthcare professionals other members of MDT

• Answer all medication-related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff and other healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy, care homes etc.)

• Suggest and recommend solutions

Medicines Reconciliation (hospital discharges and clinic outpatient letters)

• To reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into care homes outpatient clinic letters, including identifying and rectifying unexplained changes manage these changes without referral to a GP

• Perform a clinical medication review, produce a post discharge medicines care plan including dose titration and booking of follow up tests and working with patients and community pharmacists to ensure patients receive the medicines they need post discharge.

• When reconciling discharge letters or outpatient clinic letters ensure prescribing is in concordance with national and local policies and to ensure optimisation of treatment and reduce inappropriate or wasteful prescribing.

• Set up and manage systems to ensure continuity of medicines supply to high- risk groups of patients (e.g. those with medicine compliance aids or those in care homes).

• Work in partnership with hospital colleagues (e.g. care of the elderly doctors and clinical pharmacists) to proactively manage patients at high risk of medicine related problems before they are discharged to ensure continuity of care

• Ensure patients are informed and aware of any changes to their medication

Practice Formulary

• Manage practice formularies and IT systems to ensure appropriate selection of medication is easy and maximise by prescribers in the practice

• Liaise directly with hospital colleagues where prescribing needs to be returned to specialists. Assist practices in setting and maintaining a practice formulary that is hosted on the practices computer system

IMT and Electronic Prescribing

• Facilitate the development of electronic prescribing and increase its usage

• To update and maintain accurate patient medication records on the patients clinical computer systems, including advice given and action taken in pharmacist clinics reviews.

Service Development

• Develop and manage new services that are built around new medicines or NICE guidance, where new medicine/recommendations allow the development of a new care pathway (e.g. new oral anticoagulants for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation)

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Mandatory registration with General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)
• Masters degree in pharmacy (MPharm) (or equivalent)
• CPPE Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway
• Independent prescribing qualification

Desirable

• Membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society
• Specialist knowledge acquired through post-graduate diploma levels or equivalent training/experience

Other

Essential

• Flexibility to meet the needs of the business
• Able to travel to all SHP sites
• DBS required
• Immunisation status

Desirable

• Full driving licence

Experience

Essential

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Communicates effectively with patients and carers, recognising the need for alternative methods of communication to overcome difficult levels of understanding, cultural background and preferred ways of communicating, whilst ensuring the patient is fully informed
• Demonstrate the ability to communicate complex and sensitive information in an understandable form to a variety of audiences (e.g. patients)
• Excellent interpersonal, influencing and negotiating skills
• Is able to effectively plan, manage, monitor, advise and review general medicine optimisations issues in cored areas for long term conditions
• Recognise priorities when problem solving and identifies deviations from the normal pattern and is able to refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate
• Able to obtain and analyse complex technical information
• Knowledge of health promotion strategies
• Knowledge of clinical governance issues in primary care
• Effective decision making and negotiation skills
• Ability to problem solve and meet deadlines whilst working under pressure
• Excellent organisational skills
• Work effectively independently and as a team member
• Gain acceptance for recommendations and influence/motivate/persuade the audience to comply with the recommendations/agreed course of action where there may be significant barriers
• Demonstrate accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision

Desirable

• IT skills (MS Office, EMIS and DOCMAN)

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details

Employer name

Solihull Healthcare Partnership

Address

308 Blossomfield Road

Solihull

West Midlands

B91 1TF

Employer's website

https://solihullhealthcarepartnership.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)