Pharmacy Technician

Job description

Job responsibilities

·Support the Clinical Pharmacist and GPs

·Improve patient and carer understanding of, confidence in and compliance with their medicines.

·Support the clinical pharmacist with medicines and prescribing queries from patients and staff.

·Support the clinical pharmacist to improve the safety and quality of prescribing following hospital admissions and attendance.

·Carry out medicine’s switches in GP practices in line with practice and ICB/ CSU agreed specific protocols – reviewing patients’ records; amending records and informing patients.

·Carry out housekeeping whilst in patient records e.g. dose optimisation and medicines synchronisation.

· Support improving prescribing processes in general practice.

·Promotion of electronic repeat dispensing and online ordering.

·Use and maintain information systems and databases relevant to the position including incident reporting, medicines optimisation, prescribing data, cost savings and patient outcomes.

·Work closely with GP practices within the PCN.

·Participate in practice meetings, patient participation groups, and other meetings to improve engagement of the role of pharmacy technician within the PCN model and to promote issues relevant to prescribing and medicines optimization.

·Liaise with other pharmacy stakeholders e.g. ICB/ CSU Medicines Optimisation team, community pharmacy, and hospital pharmacy teams.

·Handle function specific information, which may be sensitive, complex or confidential and appropriately recording, transferring and/or coordinating such information in accordance with the Data Protection Act; Caldicott Guidelines and the Confidentiality Code of Conduct.

·To be responsible for the organisation, planning and of own workload to meet set deadlines.

·To utilise GP practice clinical systems to conduct prescribing audits e.g. SystmOne.

·To undertake, participate and share the outcomes of clinical audits to facilitate improvement and changes in practice.

· Ensure that all major MHRA drug alerts, where appropriate and within level of competence, are acted upon within practices over an appropriate time frame and to advise on any medication changes that occur as a result.

·To assist in the monitoring of prescribing expenditure at individual practice level and propose changes to ensure containment within identified resource.

·To undertake learning and development to ensure the required knowledge and skills for practice-based work.

·To carry out other duties which are appropriate to the skills and competencies of the post holder and grade of the post as the priorities of the service change.

· Contribute to the achievement and maintenance of good to outstanding CQC registration status.

1. Patient services

· To provide medication review services to patients via clinics in the practice, domiciliary visits and in residential and nursing homes, and to deliver pharmaceutical care plans that maximise cost-effective prescribing and improve the quality of patient care.

· To complete effective medicines reconciliation at transfer of care and identify any changes required

· To present at patient group meetings or other appropriate events to give advice on the appropriate use of medicines.

· Assist the PCN practices with the appropriate monitoring and management of their prescribing budgets.

· To help plan, develop and support the introduction of new working processes within the practice to optimise the quality of prescribing.

· To support the provision of targeted support and proactive review for vulnerable, complex patients and those at risk of admission and re admission to secondary care.

· To support with the resolution of medication queries from patients and their carers.

· To promote self-management and develop patients support systems.

· To support with the management of therapeutic drug monitoring system and recall of patients taking high risk drugs i.e. anticoagulants anticonvulsants and DMARDs etc.

2. Medicines Optimisation Systems

· Support the organisation and overseeing of repeat prescribing, repeat dispensing, electronic prescribing and medication review systems.

· Handle prescription queries and requests directly.

· Support the systems for reconciliation of medicines from outpatient and discharge letter and support safe transfer of care through liaison with hospital and community colleagues.

· Liaise with other stakeholders in the supply chain such as community pharmacist and appliance contractors to handle queries and manage supply problems.

· Support the clinical pharmacist with the mapping of complex whole systems pathways and process.

· Maintain and review a Medicines Handling Policy for the PCN to ensure safe processes for self-administered medicines and controlled drugs.

· Support delivery of QOF, incentive schemes, QIPP and other quality of cost effectiveness initiatives.

3. Safety

· Identifying missing information, discrepancies, and errors on repeat prescription requests and resolving them according to local policies and procedures

· Report medicines related incidents, contribute to investigations and root cause analyses

· Participate in serious incident investigations and multidisciplinary care reviews

· Report Adverse Drug Reactions and promote reporting by MDT

· Monitoring high-risk medicines according to local systems and processes

· Helping to ensure effective antimicrobial stewardship

· Oversee use and monitoring of high-risk drugs and drugs of abuse

· Action and response to Drug Safety Alerts and other safety cascades

4. Training and Education Information

· Participate in MDT learning activities

· Provide ad-hoc medicines advice to doctors and other clinicians

· Horizon scan for new drugs and provide information to the MDT on their introduction

· Provide advice on cost effective prescribing and supply issues

· Actively participate in monthly PCNs pharmacist and pharmacy technician group clinical supervision and development sessions

5. Quality

· Contribute to the achievement of KPIs and objectives, monitor against overall objectives of the role

· Inspire innovation amongst the team and stimulate improvement activities

· Ensure compliance with CQC and other Professional standards

· Promote a culture of constant improvement and excellence

· Conduct regular clinical audits and other improvement activities

· Involvement in national and local Quality, Innovation Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) projects

· Assess own performance regularly and make suggestions of how to improve personal and team performance

· Understand a risk management approach and apply it to all activities

6. Financial and Physical Resources

· Support staff management and performance review

· Support prescribing leads and Clinical Pharmacist monitor expenditure and drug budget

· Support cost effective prescribing

· Reduce waste

· Ensure and safe storage and security of medicines

7. Governance

· Implementing policies and effective processes for medicines governance including controlled drugs

· Implementing policies and effective processes for repeat prescribing and repeat dispensing

· Ensuring allergy information is accurate and correctly documented, and that the information is shared with the wider multidisciplinary team including community pharmacy

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Professional registration with GPhC
• BTEC/NVQ level 3 or equivalent in pharmaceutical sciences
• Evidence of post qualifying and continuing professional development
• Experience of working as a qualified, registered pharmacy technician in primary care, community or hospital pharmacy

Desirable

• Postgraduate qualifications of a relevant nature. e.g. FdSc in Medicines Management/Pharmacy Services; BTEC Therapeutics

Experience

Essential

• Must understand the background to and aims of general practice
• Has appreciation of new NHS architecture including the relationship between individual provider, PCN and commissioners
• Understanding of the current national policies those impacting on medicines optimisation services
• Good clinical pharmacy knowledge including terminology
• Knowledge and understanding of pharmacy law and ethics and current legislation

Desirable

• Good understanding of primary care
• Experience using GP clinical IT systems - SystmOne

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

Quedgeley Medical Centre

Address

Olympus Park

Quedgeley

Gloucester

GL2 4NF

Employer's website

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