Clinical Pharmacist

Job description

Job responsibilities

Main responsibilities

Medication Reviews

Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy and implement own prescribing changes (as an independent prescriber) and order relevant monitoring tests

Management of housebound patients via Telephone

Manage own caseload of vulnerable housebound patients at risk of hospital admission and harm from poor use of medicines. Implement own prescribing changes (as an independent prescriber) and ordering of monitoring tests. Review and refer patients to multidisciplinary case conferences. Identifying key areas of need for vulnerable patients and formulating care plans.

Medication Support

Provide support to those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines. This will usually be via telephone, however can be face to face dependant on clinical room availability.

Medicine information to practice staff and patients

Answers all medicinerelated enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy) and patients with queries about medicines. Suggesting and recommending solutions. Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.

Unplanned hospital admissions

Devise and implement practice searches to identify cohorts of patients most likely to be at risk of an unplanned admission and readmissions from medicines. Work with case managers, multidisciplinary (health and social care) review teams, hospital colleagues and virtual ward teams to manage medicines-related risk for readmission and patient harm. Put in place changes to reduce the prescribing of these medicines to high-risk patient groups.

Management of medicines at discharge from hospital

To reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals 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 and working with patients and community pharmacists to ensure patients receive the medicines they need post discharge. Set up and manage systems to ensure continuity of medicines supply to high-risk groups of patients (e.g. those with medicine compliance aids). 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.

Repeat Prescribing

Produce 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; make necessary changes as an independent prescriber, and ensure patients are booked in for necessary monitoring tests where required.

Risk Stratification

Design, development and implementation of computer searches to identify cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines. Responsibility for management of risk stratification tools on behalf of the practice. Working with patients and the primary care team to minimise risks through medicines optimisation.

Service Development

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

Information Management

Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision-making.

Medicines Quality Improvement programmes

Identify and implement good medicines optimisation practices. Conduct clinical audits and improve projects or work with colleagues such as GP registrars, practice managers etc. Present results and facilitate suggested changes. Contribute to national and local research initiatives.

Medicines Safety

Identify national and local policy and guidance that affects patient safety through the use of medicines, including MHRA alerts, product withdrawals and emerging evidence form clinical trials. Manage the process of implementing changes to medicines and guidance for practitioners.

Care Quality Commission

Ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved. Undertake risk assessment and management and ensure compliance with medicines legislation.

Implementation of local and national guidelines

Monitor practice prescribing against the local health economys RAG list for medicines that should be prescribed by hospital doctors (red drugs) or subject to shared care (amber drugs). 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. Suggest and develop computer decision support tools to help remind prescribers about the agreed formulary choice and local recommendations. Auditing practices compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance. Provide newsletters on important prescribing messages to improve prescribers knowledge and work with the team to develop and implement other techniques known to influence implementation of evidence such as audit and feedback.

Education and Training

Support the practice and Prescribing Lead in providing education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation. Support the training of visiting medical, nursing, pharmacy and other healthcare students, including the supervision of pre-registration Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians undergoing their training years, where appropriate.

Public Health

To support public health campaigns. To provide specialist knowledge on all public health programmes available to general public.

Collaborative Working

To build effective working relationships both within the practice and with external roles, including but not limited to GPs, nurses, community pharmacies, hospital pharmacies, district nurses, ICB staff.

Person Specification

Experience

Essential

• Experience of working as a qualified, registered pharmacist, community or hospital pharmacy
• Demonstrate ability to influence and persuade partners and stakeholders of the respective merits of different options, innovations, new opportunities and challenges

Desirable

• Experience of working both independently and within a team

Qualifications

Essential

• Professional registration with GPhC
• Masters degree in Pharmacy (or equivalent)
• Independent prescriber
• Demonstrates and understanding of, and conforms to, relevant standards of practice
• Follows professional and organisational policies/procedures relating to performance management

Desirable

• Evidence of continued professional development (CPD)

Knowledge, skills and qualities

Essential

• - Demonstrates use of appropriate communication to gain the cooperation of relevant stakeholders (including patients, senior and peer colleagues, and other professionals, other NHS/private organisations, e.g. CCGs)
• - Is able to recognise personal limitations and refer to more appropriate colleague(s) when necessary
• - Ability to identify risk and assess/manage risk when working with individuals
• - Able to work under pressure and meet deadlines
• - Has a planned and organised approach with an ability to prioritise their own workload to meet strict deadlines
• - Ability to maintain effective working relationships and to promote collaborative practice with all colleagues
• - Demonstrates personal accountability, emotional resilience and works well under pressure
• - Ability to organise, plan and prioritise on own initiative, including when under pressure and meeting deadlines
• - High level of written and oral communication skills
• - Ability to work flexibly and enthusiastically within a team or on own initiative
• - Works effectively independently and as a member of a team
• - Knowledge of and ability to work to policies and procedures, including confidentiality, safeguarding, lone working, information governance, and health and safety
• - Relevant advanced theoretical and practical knowledge of Primary Care Networks, General Practice and evidence based medicine
• - Awareness of systems to support management of patients in a primary care setting, delivering pharmaceutical input and support in the context of pathways of care and the business of the organisation(s)
• - Good clinical pharmacy knowledge including terminology
• - Knowledge of IT systems, including ability to use word processing skills, emails and the internet to create simple plans and reports
• - Able to obtain and analyse complex technical information
• - An appreciation of the nature of primary care prescribing, concepts of rational prescribing and strategies for the improvement of prescribing
• - Able to identify and resolve risk management issues according to policy/protocol
• - An excellent understanding of data protection and confidentiality issues
• - Knowledge and understanding of pharmacy law and ethics and current legislation
• - Meets DBS reference standards and has a clear criminal record, in line with the law on spent convictions
• - Self Motivation
• - Safeguarding and other mandatory training
• - Immunisation status
• - Access to own transport and ability to travel across the locality on a regular basis, including to visit care homes

Desirable

• - Demonstrates accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision
• - An appreciation of the NHS agenda and Government targets
• - Able to plan, manage, monitor and review general medicine optimisation issues in core areas for long term conditions
• - Adaptable

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

Kearsley Medical Centre

Address

Jackson Street

Bolton

BL4 8EP

Employer's website

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