Job responsibilities
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
Management
of medicines at discharge from hospital
To reconcile medicines
following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into care homes;
identify and rectify unexplained changes; manage these changes with referral to
the GP or a senior pharmacist; 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. 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).
Work in partnership with hospital colleagues (e.g. care of the elderly doctors
and clinical pharmacists) and the pharmacy team to proactively manage patients
at high risk of medicine related problems before they are discharged to ensure
continuity of care.
Risk
stratification
Contribute to the design,
development and implementation of computer searches to identify cohorts of
patients at high risk of harm from medicines as part of the pharmacy team.
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.
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 as part of the PCN
pharmacy team, 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 any changes to reduce the
prescribing of these medicines to highrisk patient groups.
Repeat
prescribing
Take part in
the review, update and implementation of a practice repeat prescribing policy. Support
the practice repeat prescribing reauthorisation process by reviewing patient
requests for repeat prescriptions and reviewing medicines reaching review
dates; refer to a senior pharmacist / independent prescriber to make necessary
changes and ensure patients are booked in for necessary monitoring tests where
required.
Telephone
and patient facing medicines support
Participate
in the telephone help line for patients with questions, queries and concerns
about their medicines. Start to develop skills with face to face / telephone clinical
medication reviews (SMRs) i.e. a review of the ongoing need for each medicine,
a review of monitoring needs and an opportunity to support patients with their
medicine taking.
Medication
review
Develop skills to undertake clinical medication
reviews with patients with multi-morbidity and polypharmacy and propose
prescribing changes to senior pharmacist / independent prescribers and order
relevant monitoring tests.
Care
home medication reviews
Take a role
in reconciliation and medication reviews of care home residents as part of multidisciplinary
team. Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients with multimorbidity
and polypharmacy and propose prescribing changes and any relevant monitoring
tests. Work with care home staff and pharmacy team to improve safety of
medicines ordering and administration.
Domiciliary
clinical medication review
Develop
skills as part of multidisciplinary team, to review vulnerable housebound
patients at risk of hospital admission and harm from poor use of medicines. Propose
any prescribing changes and ordering of monitoring tests. Attend and refer
patients to multidisciplinary case conferences as necessary and discuss with
housebound teams (e.g.GP / nurse).
Long
term condition clinics
Take part in
multi-morbidity clinics and in partnership with other primary healthcare
colleagues and implement improvements to patients medicines, including suggested
de-prescribing.
Service
development
Take part in the development and management of new
services that are built around new medicines or NICE guidance, where new
medicine/recommendations allow the development of a new care pathway (e.g. new
oral anticoagulants for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation).
Care
Quality Commission
Demonstrate professional leadership
within the pharmacy team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards
where medicines are involved.
Medicine
information to practice staff and patients
Retrieve information from
relevant sources in order to answer medicinerelated enquiries from GPs, other
practice staff and patients with queries about medicines, suggesting and
recommending solutions. Provide follow up for patients to monitor the effect of
any changes.
Information
management
Develop skills to analyse, interpret and present
medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision making.
Medicines
quality improvement
Work within the pharmacy team to identify and
provide necessary leadership on areas of prescribing requiring improvement.
Either conduct own or directed audits and improvement projects or work with
colleagues. Present results and build leadership skills with suggested changes.
Contribute to national and local research initiatives where indicated.
Training
& Shared Learning
Participate in shared
learning across clinicians within the practice on medication related issues.
Share
learning with the PCN pharmacy team and those working in associated local
practices, especially with those developing this role in general practice,
pre-registration pharmacists and pharmacy technicians.
Implementation
of local and national guidelines and formulary recommendations
To participate in the implementation
of the Primary Care Network Medicines Optimisation Plan and Structure
Medication Reviews and evolving PCN practice as advised the PCN leads.
Adhere to the
content of the Gloucestershire Joint Formulary and assist practices in
maintaining the practice formulary that is hosted on the practices computer
system.
Adhere to county
wide policies including Do Not Prescribe lists for medicines that either should
not be prescribed in primary care or should be prescribed by hospital doctors only
or subject to shared care. Liaise directly with hospital colleagues where
prescribing needs to be returned to specialists.
Proactively provide
internal practice communications on important prescribing messages to improve
prescribers knowledge and work with the pharmacy team to develop and implement
other techniques known to influence implementation of evidence such as audit
and feedback.
Medicines
safety
Support implementation of 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.
For more information please see the Job Description attached to this advert.
