Job responsibilities
Job Description Practice
Pharmacist
Title: Practice Pharmacist
Responsible
(clinically) to: GP
Responsible
(administratively) to: Practice Manager
Job
Summary
The
main purpose of the role is to deliver clinical pharmacy support to Wetmore
Road Surgery through management and interventions of your own patient caseload.
You will work as part of the general practice team to resolve day-to-day
medicine issues and deliver direct patient care. This includes managing
long-term conditions, specific advice for those on multiple medications and
better access to health checks.
Key Responsibilities
To
reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and
into care homes, including identifying and rectifying unexplained changes and
working with patients and community pharmacists to ensure patients receive the
medicines they need post discharge.
Reduce inappropriate poly-pharmacy and wasteful
prescribing through clinical medication review
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).
Identification
of cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines through pre-prepared
practice computer searches. This might include risks that are patient related,
medicine related, or both.
Review
the use of medicines most commonly associated with unplanned hospital
admissions and readmissions through audit and individual patient reviews. Put
in place changes to reduce the prescribing of these medicines to high-risk
patient groups.
Update
and implement a practice repeat prescribing policy. Manage the repeat
prescribing reauthorisation process by reviewing patient requests for repeat
prescriptions and reviewing medicines reaching review dates and flagging up
those needing a review to the GP
Undertake
Clinical Medication Reviews and Structured Medication Reviews with patients,
implement required actions or produce recommendations for the GP on prescribing
and monitoring as appropriate.
Work
with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and
administration.
Contribute
pharmaceutical advice for the development and implementation of new services
that have medicinal components (e.g. advise on treatment pathways)
Work
with the Practice Manager and GPs to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC
standards where medicines are involved. Undertake risk assessment and
management and ensure compliance with medicines legislation.
To
contribute to public health campaigns, including flu vaccinations, and adult
immunisation programmes.
Answers
all medicinerelated
enquiries from GPs, other practice staff and patients with queries about
medicines.
Analyse,
interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support
decision making.
Undertake
simple audits of prescribing in areas directed by the GPs, feedback the results
and implement changes in conjunction with the practice team.
Provide
education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines
optimisation.
Monitor
practice prescribing against the GMMMG RAG list and make recommendations to GPs
for medicines that should be prescribed by hospital doctors (red drugs) or
subject to shared care (amber drugs).
Auditing
practices compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance.
Provide
newsletters or bulletins on important prescribing messages.
Implement
changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other
local and national guidance.
Support
the practice in adopting local and national medication safety strategies such
as PINCER.
Communication
Demonstrate
sensitive communication styles to ensure patients are fully informed and
consent to treatment.
Communicate
effectively with patients and carers, recognising the need for alternative
methods of communication to overcome different levels of understanding,
cultural background and preferred ways of communicating.
Anticipate
barriers to communication and take action to improve communication.
Estimate
and maintain effective communication with individuals and groups within the
practice environment and with external stakeholders.
Act
as an advocate when representing patients and colleagues.
Delivering a Quality
Service
Recognise
and work within own competence and professional code of conduct
Produce
accurate, contemporaneous and complete records of patient consultation,
consistent with legislation, policies and procedures.
Prioritise,
organise and manage own workload in a manner that maintains and promotes
quality.
Deliver
care according to NICE guidelines and evidence-based care.
Assess
effectiveness of care delivery through self and peer review, benchmarking and
formal evaluation.
Participate
in the maintenance of quality governance systems and processes across the
practice.
Utilise
the audit cycle as a means of evaluating the quality of the work of self and
team, implementing improvements where required.
Collaborate
on improving the quality of healthcare in partnership with other clinical
teams, responding to local and national policies and initiatives as appropriate.
Evaluate
the patients response to healthcare provision and the effectiveness of care.
Support
and participate in shared learning across the practice and wider organisation.
Participate
in the management and review of patient complaints, and identify learning from
clinical incidents and near-miss events using a structured framework (eg
root-cause analysis).
Assess
the impact of policy implementation on care delivery.
Understand
and apply legal policy that supports the identification of vulnerable and
abused children and adults, being aware of statutory child/vulnerable adult
health procedures and local guidance.
Leadership Personal and People
Development
Take
responsibility for own development, learning and performance including
participating in clinical supervision and acting as a positive role model
Support
the development of others in order to maximise potential
Actively
promote the workplace as a learning environment, encouraging everyone to learn
from each other and from external good practice
Participate
in planning and implementing changes within the area of care and
responsibility, specifically, community care, learning disabilities and
dementia care.
Contribute
and participate in the development of local guidelines, protocols and standards
Ensure
awareness of sources of support and guidance (eg PALS), and provide information
in an acceptable format to all patients, recognising any difficulties and
referring where appropriate
Team Working
Understand
own role and scope, and identify how this may develop over time.
Work
as an effective and responsible team member, supporting others and exploring
the mechanisms to develop new ways of working.
Delegate
clearly and appropriately, adopting the principles of safe practice and
assessing competence.
Ensure
clear referral mechanisms are in place to meet patient needs.
Prioritise
own workload and ensure effective time-management strategies are embedded
within the culture of the team.
Work
effectively with others to clearly define values, direction and policies
impacting upon care delivery.
Participate
in team activities that create opportunities to improve patient care.
Participate
in and support local projects as agreed with the practice management team.
Management of Risk
Manage
and assess risk within the areas of responsibility, ensuring adequate measures
are in place to protect staff and patients.
Monitor
work areas and practices to ensure they are safe and free from hazards and
conform to health, safety and security legislation, policies, procedures and
guidelines.
Apply
policies that reduce environmental health risks, are culturally sensitive and
increase access to healthcare for all.
Participate
in the local implementation strategies that are aligned to the values and
culture of general practice.
Utilising Information
Use
technology as an aid to management in planning, implementation and monitoring,
presenting and communicating information.
Review
and process data using accurate Snomed codes to ensure easy and accurate
retrieval for monitoring and audit processes.
Manage
information searches using the internet and local library databases, for
example, the retrieval of relevant information for patients on their condition.
Collate,
analyse and present clinical data and information to the team using appropriate
charts and/or graphs to enhance care.
Learning and Development
Act
as mentor for more junior staff and students, assessing competence against set
standards as requested and if appropriately qualified.
Disseminate
learning and information gained to other team members in order to share good
practice and inform others about current and future developments.
Assess
own learning needs and undertake learning as appropriate.
Make
effective use of learning opportunities within and outside the workplace,
evaluating their effectiveness and feeding back relevant information.
Provide
an educational role to patients, carers, families and colleagues in an
environment that facilitates learning.
