PCN - Clinical Pharmacist - Wheatbridge

Job responsibilities

Key duties and responsibilities

1. Patient facing medicines support

Hold clinics for patients requiring medication reviews, stratifying the need for technical reviews, medicines adherence reviews (including polypharmacy reviews), focal long-term condition/clinical reviews (see section 3) or holistic long-term condition/clinical reviews (structured medication reviews). Provide support for patients with questions, queries, and concerns about their medicines.

2. Care home structured medication reviews

Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients, care home staff and aging well team, produce recommendations for the multidisciplinary team on prescribing and monitoring. Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration.

3. Long-term condition Clinics

See (where appropriate) patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required (e.g., Respiratory, Cardiovascular-Reno-Metabolic). 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 (i.e. medicines optimisation). Make appropriate recommendations to Senior Pharmacists or GPs for medicine improvement.

4. Patient facing Domiciliary Structured Medication Reviews

Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for the senior clinical pharmacists, nurses and GPs on prescribing and monitoring. Attend and refer patients to multidisciplinary case conferences.

5. Risk stratification

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.

6. Unplanned hospital admissions

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.

7. 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 high-risk groups of patients (e.g., those with medicine compliance aids or those in Care Homes).

8. Medicine information to practice staff and patients

Answer relevant medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other network 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.

9. Signposting

Ensure that patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for the appropriate level of care within an appropriate time period e.g., pathology results, common/minor ailments, acute conditions, long term condition reviews etc.

10. Repeat prescribing

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. Ensure patients have appropriate monitoring tests in place when required.

11. 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).

12. Information management

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

13. Medicines quality improvement

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

14. Medicines safety

Implement changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local and national guidance.

15. 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 each practices computer system.

Auditing practices compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance.

Provide newsletters or bulletins on important prescribing messages.

16. Education and Training

Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation.

17. Care Quality Commission

Work with the general practice teams to ensure the practices are compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.

18. Public health

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

19. Collaborative working arrangements

Participate in the PCN MDT.

Liaise with ICB colleagues including ICB pharmacists on prescribing related matters to ensure consistency of patient care and benefit.

Liaise with colleagues including ICB, STP/ICS Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians Heads of Medicines Management/Optimisation to benefit from peer support.

Foster and maintain strong links with all services across the PCN and neighbouring networks. Explore the potential for collaborative working and takes opportunities to initiate and sustain such relationships.

Liaise with other stakeholders as needed for the collective benefit of patients.

Qualifications

Essential

• Mandatory registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council Demonstrates understanding of, and conforms to, relevant standards of practice
• Follows professional & organisational policies/procedures relating to performance management

Desirable

• Membership Primary Care Pharmacists Association
• Membership Royal Pharmaceutical Society
• Clinical Diploma
• Foundation training in primary care
• Independent Prescribing or currently working towards qualification

Skills and Knowledge

Essential

• Awareness of common acute and long-term conditions that are likely to be seen in general practice
• Excellent Interpersonal, influencing & negotiating skills, to make shared decisions in situations where barriers to this may be present
• Excellent verbal & written communication skills
• Demonstrate the ability to communicate complex and sensitive information in an understandable form to various audiences (e.g. patients)
• Good IT communication skills
• An appreciation of GPs and General Practice environment
• Knowledge of IT systems, including ability to use word processing skills, emails & internet to produce timely and accurate plans and reports
• Able to obtain and analyse complex technical information
• Recognises priorities when problem solving and identifies deviations from the normal pattern and able to refer to more senior clinical colleagues when appropriate
• Able to work under pressure and meet deadlines
• Work effectively independently and as a team member

Desirable

• Experience of working in Primary Care
• In depth therapeutic & clinical knowledge and an understanding of evidence-based healthcare
• Experience of collaborative working and building relationships across a variety of organisations
• Able to plan, manage, monitor, advise & review general medicines optimisation issues in core areas for long term conditions (LTCs)
• Understand the systems of research governance
• Demonstrates accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision

Other

Essential

• Adaptable and self-motivated
• Able to recognise personal limitations and refer to more suitable colleagues when appropriate
• Ability to identify risk and assess/manage risk when working with individuals
• Appropriate Immunisation Status
• Meets DBS reference standards and has a clear criminal record, in line with the law on spent convictions
• Access to own transport and ability to travel across the locality on a regular basis, including to visit people in their own homes

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).