Senior Clinical Pharmacist

Job responsibilities

Key responsibilities

Provide pharmaceutical input to areas of chronic disease management within the practices and develop pharmacist-led patient care pathways

Undertake chronic disease reviews (including diabetes, hypertension, COPD and asthma)

Undertake structured medication reviews to manage patients with complex polypharmacy , especially older people, housebound patients, people in residential care homes and those with multiple co-morbidities

Provide expert clinical medicines advice for the practice teams, giving support with prescription and medication queries

Help support the repeat prescriptions system including providing training for administrative and reception staff and reviewing and implementing repeat prescribing policies

Improve prescribing practice through educational support for all prescribers in the practices

Provide clinical leadership on medicines optimisation, safe prescribing and quality improvement, identifying national and local prescribing guidance that affects patient safety requiring implementation (including MHRA alerts, product withdrawals and new research evidence)

Manage some aspects of the quality and outcomes framework and enhanced services

Medicines reconciliation on hospital discharge and transfer of care

Support improvements in clinical care through practice-based audits and implementing change.

Liaise with community and hospital pharmacy services to help provide streamlined care, improve patient outcomes, and help manage workload, and liaise directly with hospital colleagues where prescribing needs to be returned to specialists.

Respond to patient queries, questions, and concerns regarding medications (by face to face and/or telephone contact)

Contribute to the recruitment, induction, development and appraisal of pharmacy technicians and junior pharmacists and ensure that adequate training and supervision are provided

Manage the pharmacy technician team together with the clinical, prescribing and reception leads in each practice

Contribute to the vision and development of pharmacy services within the PCN

Support public health campaigns such as vaccination

Key Working Relationships

Patients

Pharmacy team clinical pharmacists and pharmacy technicians

PCN leads: Clinical Director, Clinical Lead GPs and Lead Practice Managers

Equality and Diversity

Recognizingthe rights of patients,carers, relatives and colleagues and respecting their needs, beliefs, privacy and dignity.

Not discriminating against patients,carers, relatives or colleagues on the grounds of any of the protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010 (or its amendments or later legislation).

Respecting the rights of patients to accept or refuse treatment or a care provider.

Personal/Professional Development

Participate in an annual individual performance review, including taking responsibility for maintaining a record of own personal and/or professional development

Participate in any trainingprogrammeimplemented by the PCN management team

GP prescribing leads at each practice, GP clinical supervisor, all GPs

Reception/repeat prescribing teams

Practice nurses and health care assistants

Community pharmacists

ICB pharmacists and peer support groups

Hospital pharmacists

Community nurses and other community health professionals

CPPE Pharmacists formal CPD Organisation

Qualifications

Essential

• Independent Prescriber qualification (or be in the process of working towards this qualification)

Desirable

• Post-graduate Diploma in General Pharmacy Practice

Experience

Essential

• Minimum of 4-5 years post-graduate experience, some of which may have been in an acute hospital or primary care setting
• Excellent knowledge and understanding of clinical pharmacy, prescribing and medicines management
• NHS experience and understanding of NHS environment and ethos
• Experience of direct patient care
• Independent Prescriber qualification (or be in the process of working towards this qualification)

Desirable

• NHS primary care experience
• Post-graduate Diploma in General Pharmacy Practice
• Special interest in diabetes and/or hypertension/COPD/asthma

Knowledge and skills

Essential

• strong communication skills
• self-motivation
• flexibility required to work with different teams in different practices
• excellent organisation and management skills and ability to prioritise
• strongly held values around equality, diversity and openness
• resilience, resourcefulness and an ability to cope under pressure
• Leadership skills: able to lead and mentor a team, work independently, provide support to other pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, contribute to the PCN vision for quality improvement and develop clear plans to achieve results
• Collaborative working: ability to work collaboratively in multi-disciplinary teams and develop strong working relationships with staff in different practices, community and hospital pharmacy teams and CCG pharmacists
• Safe working: recognition of personal limitations and when to refer/ask advice from colleagues, understanding of clinical governance, ability to identify and resolve risk management issues, develop and review policies relating to safe prescribing
• Education, training and development: proven commitment to continuing professional development and education, ability to develop and deliver education for other staff and mentor and appraise more junior pharmacist colleagues
• Excellent keyboard and computer skills including working knowledge of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).

Desirable

• Knowledge of EMIS clinical system
• Current driving license and access to own transport

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).