PCN Clinical Pharmacist

Job description

Job responsibilities

The post holder will work within their clinical competence as part of a multi-disciplinary team to provide expertise in clinical medicines management. This involves providing structured medication reviews, managing long term conditions, ensuring safe prescribing at the transfer of care, implementing systems for safer prescribing, repeating prescription reauthorisation and dealing with acute prescription requests.

The post holder will perform medication review of patients with polypharmacy, those patients in residential and nursing homes and those with multiple comorbidities.

The post holder will provide leadership on quality improvement and clinical audit and manage some aspects of the Quality and Outcomes Framework.

This role is pivotal to improving the quality of care and operational efficiencies so requires motivation and passion to deliver an excellent service within general practice.

The post holder will be supported to develop their role to become a non-medical prescriber, if that qualification is not already held.

Tasks expected may include but are not limited to:

Long-Term Conditions Clincs

• See (where appropriate) patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicines optimisation is required (e.g. COPD, asthmas)
• Review the on-going need for each medicine, a review of monitoring needs and an opportunity to support patients with their medicines taking ensuring they get the best use of their medicines including greener options (i.e. medicine optimisation).
• Make appropriate recommendations to GPs for medicine improvement.

Clinical Medication Review:

• Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for senior clinical pharmacist, nurses and/or GP on prescribing and monitoring
• Review patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required (e.g., COPD, asthma)

• Review the on-going need for each medicine, a review of monitoring needs and an opportunity to support patients with their medicines taking ensuring they get the best use of their medicines, including greener options (i.e., medicines optimisation).
• Make appropriate recommendations to GPs for medicine improvement, to be used as part of multidisciplinary case conferences where appropriate.

Management of common/minor/self-limiting ailments:

Managing caseload of patients with common/minor/self-limiting ailments while working within a scope of practice and limits of competence

• Signposting to community pharmacy and referring to GPs or other healthcare professionals where appropriate

Medicine Information to Practice Staff and Patients:

• Provide patient facing clinics for those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines in the practice
• Answers relevant medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams (e.g., community pharmacy) and patients with queries about medicines
• Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration
• Suggesting and recommending solutions
• Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes

Unplanned Hospital admissions:

• Review the use of medicines most 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 highrisk patient groups

Management of medicines at discharge from hospital:

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.

• Set up and manage systems to ensure continuity of medicines supply to highrisk groups of patients (e.g., those with medicine compliance aids or those in care homes)

Service Development:

• Contribute pharmaceutical advice for the development and implementation of new services that have medicinal components (e.g., advice on treatment pathways and patient information leaflets)

Medicines quality improvement:

• Undertake clinical audits of prescribing in areas directed by the GPs, feedback the results and implement changes in conjunction with the practice team

Implementation of local and national guidelines and formulary recommendations:

• Monitor practice prescribing against the local health economys 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).

• Assist practices in seeing and maintaining a practice formulary that is hosted on the practices computer system.
• Auditing practices compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance.

Operating arrangements:

• Responsibility for one or more sites dependent upon patient list size
• Based centrally with the opportunity to work remotely from other sites
• This is an evolving role and the responsibilities may augment over time in consultation with the post-holder

Other Tasks:

• Duties may be varied from time to time under the direction of the line manager dependent on current and evolving practices workload and staffing levels.

Other administration and professional responsibilities:

• Participate in the administrative and professional responsibilities of the PCN Pharmacy team
• Ensure appropriate items of service claims are made accurately, reporting any problems to the practice administrator
• Ensure collection and maintenance of any required statistical information
• Attend and participate in team meetings as required

Training and personal development:

• Maintain professional registration with the GPhC
• If it is necessary to expand the role to include additional responsibilities, full training will be given

Person Specification

Other

Essential

• Registration as a Pharmacist with the General Pharmaceutical Council

Qualifications

Essential

• Masters degree in pharmacy (MPharm) (or equivalent)

Desirable

• Independent prescriber or currently working towards an independent prescribing qualification

Experience

Essential

• Minimum of 2 years post-qualification experience,

Desirable

• Experience of working across multiple sectors of Pharmacy (Community Pharmacy, Hospital Pharmacy, ICBs, Industry), Experience of working in General Practice, Experience of using 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

Lakeside Healthcare Group

Address

Lakeside Healthcare

Ryhall Road

Stamford

Lincolnshire

PE9 1YA

Employer's website

https://www.lakesidehealthcaregroup.co.uk (Opens in a new tab)