Avon Valley PCN Pharmacy Technician

Job description

Job responsibilities

Patient facing

Run your own CVD primary prevention clinic to discuss lifestyle interventions and the option of starting a statin, as part of a piece of work conducted by the pharmacy team

Lead on prioritising and conducting medicines safety searches across the year to identify patients who would most benefit from intervention and discussions with the pharmacy team.

Carry out DOAC dose checks as part of the wider pharmacy team workload and have discussions with patients when appropriate about why we may need to change their doses.

Undertake patient facing and patient supporting roles to ensure effective medicines use, through shared decision-making conversations with patients. i.e., synchronisation, adherence, ability to take medicines, follow up of basic observations (e.g. blood pressure)

Carry out medicine optimisation tasks including effective medicine administration (e.g. checking inhaler technique), supporting medication reviews, medicines reconciliation, implementing efficient ordering and return processes, and reducing wastage. Utilise consultation skills to work in partnership with patients and carers to ensure they use their medicines effectively.

Provide expertise to address both the public health and social care needs of patients, including lifestyle advice, service information, and help in tackling local health inequalities.

Medicines information

Take part in the pharmacy team central rota to answers relevant medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy) and patients.

Suggest and recommend solutions using clinical knowledge and trusted pharmaceutical sources, referring to pharmacists as required.

Medicine Reconciliation

Carry out occasional medication reviews and reconciliation for new care home patients.

Medicines Management

Provide leadership for medicines optimisation systems across the PCN, supporting practices with a range of services to get the best value from medicines

Support initiatives for antimicrobial stewardship to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing locally.

Support the Pharmacy administrator in her role in managing blood monitoring of High-Risk Drugs and DOACs across the PCN.

Provide specialist expertise in the use of medicines whilst helping to address both the public health and social care needs of patients including lifestyle advice, service information, and help in tackling inequalities

Take a central role in the clinical aspects of shared care protocols and liaising with specialist pharmacists for more complex patients

Undertake and lead on any specific medicines optimisation-based projects/portfolio areas of work as may be required by the Pharmacy Team

Respond to MHRA alerts when required

Assist in implementing national and local prescribing policies, NICE guidance, and medicines optimisation initiatives.

Contribute to patient safety audits, quality improvement work, and data analysis related to prescribing.

Collaborating Working Relationships

Develop relationships with other pharmacy technicians, pharmacists and members of the multi-disciplinary team to support integration of the pharmacy team across health and social care to help improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and help manage general practice workload.

Work collaboratively with ICB pharmacy team and local community pharmacies

Provide advice when needed to practice reception teams in sorting and streaming general prescription requests

Collaborate closely with GPs, clinical pharmacists, and wider PCN teams to optimise prescribing and reduce medicines waste.

Education and Training

Attend internal and external meetings and any training courses and supervision sessions as required.

You will be expected to enrol on the CPPE Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway (PCPEP) if you have not completed already or can be exempted.

Develop a good working knowledge of the clinical systems used by the practices (SystmOne)

Practice Targets

Support the implementation of national prescribing policies and guidance within GP practices, care homes and other primary care settings. This will be achieved through undertaking clinical audits, supporting quality improvement measures and contributing to the Quality and Outcomes Framework and enhanced services.

Support the delivery of the pharmacy and medicines optimisation elements of the network service specifications within the Network Contract DES and the MOIS scheme from the ICB.

Service development

Work with other healthcare professionals to create processes and Standard Operating Procedures for use within the practice and pharmacy teams, which offer improvement in consistency and delivery of our services to patients.

Contribute pharmaceutical advice for the development and implementation of new services

Identify areas of good practice and help to disseminate across the PCN

Liaise with the practices and, where practicable, to standardise the medicines management process across the PCN

Promotion and set up of online ordering including proxy ordering for care homes.

Undertake any other duties as may reasonably be required from time to time.

Person Specification

Other

Essential

• Be able to organise workload, multi-task and work under pressure and achieve tight deadlines
• Work autonomously and within a team
• Ability to be flexible with hours if required
• Clear understanding of confidentiality
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, both written and verbal
• Have a flexible working attitude and willingness to adopt new ways of working
• Clear, concise record keeping and report writing skills
• Have attention to detail, able to work accurately, identifying errors quickly and easily
• Friendly and approachable
• Ability to drive/ have own car

Desirable

• A wide range of IT skills especially Microsoft 365 software and specifically Excel.

Qualifications

Essential

• NVQ level 3 or equivalent pharmacy technician qualification
• Professional registration with GPhC
• Evidence of continued professional development
• Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education primary care Pharmacy Education Pathway (PCPEP) qualification, or be working towards this.

Desirable

• Experience working in primary care as a Pharmacy Technician
• Accuracy checking pharmacy technician qualification
• Evidence of additional supportive learning courses e.g.: smoking cessation or CPPE workshops

Experience

Essential

• Good clinical pharmacy knowledge of drugs and basic clinical therapeutics
• An appreciation of the nature of primary care prescribing, concepts of rational prescribing and strategies for
• improvement of prescribing
• Knowledge and understanding of pharmacy law and ethics and current legislation

Desirable

• Relevant theoretical and practical knowledge of Primary Care Networks, General Practice and evidence-based medicine
• An appreciation of NHS agenda and government targets
• An understanding of the current PCN DES specifications
• Awareness of GP budget management and funding systems to enable GP
• clinical pharmacist services to assist delivery of PCN and NHS priorities and requirements for financial balance and quality
• 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 organisations
• Experience of working with clinical management systems, especially SystmOne.
• A wide range of IT skills especially Microsoft 365 software and specifically Excel.

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.

Employer details

Employer name

Fordingbridge Surgery

Address

The Fordingbridge Surgery

Bartons Road

Fordingbridge

Hampshire

SP6 1RS

Employer's website

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