Job responsibilities
Key responsibilities
Clinical Care:
Improve the quality and safety of care offered to patients who are living locally in care homes with an
option to undertake care home optimisation work.
To plan and organise own workload, including audit and project work, care home visits, MDT meetings
and training sessions for members of the Practice team, patients, and carers.
Run clinics where medicines are the main interventions e.g. anticoagulant monitoring
clinics.
Conduct spirometry, child immunisation, travel vaccination, diabetic foot checks and
NHS Health Checks as well as other roles as required on completion of appropriate
training.
Conduct care planning including mental health, admission avoidance schemes and End
of Life patients.
Review daily Pathology results and act on results.
Undertake minor ailments triage and direct patients based on clinical need to capture
relevant patient health information at all consultations including contributing to the
quality outcomes framework.
Monitoring patients with complex long-term conditions such as hypertension, diabetes
and COPD, ensuring that medication is optimised, titrated, monitored and complied with.
Providing clinical advice and expertise on medication.
Establishing ongoing professional relationships with individual patients.
Act across the interface liaising with other providers i.e. secondary care, community Pharmacy and care/nursing homes as necessary to ensure safe transfers of care.
Deliver on and/or oversee relevant aspects of the PCN Directed Enhanced Service (DES).
Take a central role in the clinical aspects of shared care protocols, clinical research with medicines, liaison with specialist pharmacists (e.g. mental health and reduction of
inappropriate antipsychotic use in people with learning difficulties).
Be part of a professional clinical network and have access to appropriate clinical
supervision.
Support the PCN clinical director as is necessary.
Maintain clinical competencies for activities undertaken.
Prescribing and Medication Review
Providing structured medication reviews to those in care homes, to the most frail and vulnerable.
Providing structured medication reviews to patients in their own homes, if required.
Reviewing prescribing and medication processes and policies in care homes and providing support to
care home teams.
Manage the repeat prescribing reauthorisation process by reviewing requests for repeat
prescriptions and medicines reaching review dates. Review prescribing against local and
national targets and engage with the wider prescribing team to rectify.
Carry out structured medicines optimisation reviews in care homes associated with the
PCN working with all stakeholders in the multidisciplinary team to ensure optimal patient
care and reduction of unplanned hospital admissions and inappropriate A&E attendances.
Care home staff training can be supported by CCG procured training packages.
To contribute to the reduction of medicine wastage within practices across the PCN,
resulting in improved budget performance for both the practice and the wider CCG area.
To conduct non-urgent domiciliary visits in order to complete medication reviews with
housebound patients as is applicable.
Setting up uniform protocols and searches for high-risk drug monitoring.
Reviewing and updating repeat prescribing policies, with a view to making this and other policies in
relation to prescribing uniform across the PCN.
Provide expertise in clinical medicines review and address public health and social needs
of patients in GP practices, developing bespoke medicine plans for individual patients.
Medicines Optimisation and Advice:
Reduce inappropriate polypharmacy and wasteful prescribing, support patients to take
their medications to get the best from them through structured medication reviews and
promoting self-care.
Reconcile medicines following hospital discharge, amend medication lists and contact patients/ carers
regarding such changes, as appropriate, to ensure patients receive the medicines they need post
discharge.
Contribute to reductions in medicine related hospital admissions and readmissions by
supporting patients to get the best outcomes from their medicines and identifying and
addressing medicines related issues.
Interface with community and hospital pharmacy colleagues and develop referral
processes between primary care professionals including the promotion of the repeat
dispensing service and new medicines service maximising their clinical effectiveness to
patients and ensuring the smooth integration of information flows between general
practice and the community pharmacies.
Manage medicines queries from patients and health care professionals.
Increase quality and safety of prescribing through mechanisms such as audit and PDSA
cycles, drug to diagnosis checks, use of the PINCER tool and ensuring appropriate
monitoring such as blood testing has taken place.
Provide leadership on person centred medicines optimisation (including ensuring
prescribers in the practice conserve antibiotics in line with local antimicrobial
stewardship
guidance) and quality improvement, whilst contributing to the quality and outcomes
framework and enhanced services.
Manage practice formularies to improve the quality, safety and cost effectiveness of
prescribing in liaison with the CCG Medicines Management team, and
associated practice medicines management technicians.
Review MHRA alerts, organise appropriate searches/audits, implement drug withdrawals, etc;
improving medicines safety.
Manage medicines shortages and recommend alternatives to clinical colleagues.
Provide medicines information and training to Practice healthcare professionals and
admin staff.
Act as a source of medicines information for all of the practice team and patients (e.g.around doses, side effects, adverse events, possible alternatives e.g. around out of
stocks).
General:
Lead on the prescribing domains of the Quality & Outcome Framework (QoF)
Lead on the prescribing domains of the Consolidated Funding Framework (CFF).
Lead on the prescribing domains of the Investment and Impact Fund (IIF)
Do any further work or training as requested of you by the Senior Clinical Pharmacist or your GP Clinical
supervisor to further improve your clinical knowledge and understanding
Meet the professional standards expected of all Pharmacists in Great Britain as described by the
General Pharmacy Council.
Work with primary/secondary care colleagues and patients to implement NICE and other
evidence based guidance.
Contribute to multi-morbidity reviews and multidisciplinary reviews.
Work across the PCN as required to ensure a consistent
approach with regards to medicines optimisation and safe, effective, high quality patient
care.
Support innovation and research, both through any emerging pilot schemes, and the
broader NCRN in the region.
Contribute to practice team meetings, clinical meetings and case reviews.
Mentor new pharmacists, trainee nurses and GP registrars.
Carry out any appropriate duties as required by the PCN team as is relevant supporting further
integration of general practice with the wider healthcare teams (including community and hospital pharmacy) to help improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and help manage
general practice workload.
Maintain confidentiality at all times and carry out the Practices confidentiality policy.
Attend monthly meetings of pilot group, and training scheme events, as appropriate.
Be familiar with and implement the Practices policies and procedures and all
legislative and regulatory requirements relating to the activities of the Company.
Be familiar with the Company obligations under the Health & Safety at work Act 1974 and
Health & Safety Regulations detailed in the Practices policy.
Represent the Practice in a professional manner at all times, on the telephone, face
to face or in written communication.
Comply with any requirements of the governing professional body to maintain
registration.
Provide training and education on therapeutic and medicines optimisation.
Support public health campaigns at national and local levels.#
Work with practices to ensure full compliance with Care Quality Commission standards for safe and
effective care.
