Pharmacy Technician

Job responsibilities

Job Title: Pharmacy Technician

Responsible to: Senior Clinical Pharmacist

Accountable to: PCN Operational Manager

Hours of work: 37.5 hours a week

Salary: Salary negotiable up to Agenda for Change Band 5

Job Scope

Clinical Pharmacy in General Practice is part of an exciting programme of transformation to develop a new model of care which addresses our ambition to deliver person-centred, coordinated care across the community. The Clinical Pharmacy in General Practice model is supported by the direction of national policy including the Five Year Forward View and GP Forward View where there is a need to better utilise the role of pharmacy within primary care to pro-actively help patients stay safe and well and out of hospital as well as helping to reduce the demands on general practice.

Pharmacy technicians play an important role, complementing clinical pharmacists, community pharmacists and other members of the PCN multi- disciplinary team. Pharmacy technicians are different to clinical pharmacists as they are not able to prescribe or make clinical decisions, instead working under supervision to ensure effective and efficient use of medicines.

Pharmacy technicians core role responsibilities will cover clinical, and technical and administrative categories.

The purpose of the role is to lead improvements to maximise safe, cost effective best practice in prescribing to improve the quality of patient care. The post holder will help patients to get the best from their medicines by switching medications to agreed and approved protocols, improving repeat prescribing processes in General Practice, including promotion of repeat dispensing and online ordering, minimising clinical risk and aiming to reduce wasted medicines.

In addition, the post holder will be responsible for encouraging the development of better understanding of the principles of medicines optimisation throughout the practice teams and promoting good practice in line with therapeutic developments. This will involve assisting the PCN in achieving national requirements, NICE implementation and utilisation of medicines optimisation initiatives.

Key duties and responsibilities

Clinical

Undertake patient facing and patient supporting roles to ensure effective medicines use, through shared decision-making conversations with patients.

Carry out medicines optimisation tasks including effective medicine administration (e.g. checking inhaler technique), supporting medication reviews and medicines reconciliation. Where required, utilise consultation skills to work in partnership with patients to ensure they use their medicines effectively.

As determined by the PCN, support medication reviews and medicines reconciliation for new care home patients and synchronising medicines for patient transfers between care settings, linking with local community pharmacies

Support the Clinical Pharmacist in Structured Medication Reviews (SMR)

i.e. organise necessary monitoring tests prior to SMR

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.

Manage shared care protocols and liaise with Clinical Pharmacists for more complex patients.

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

Technical and Administrative

Support the PCN multi-disciplinary team to ensure efficient medicines optimisation processes are being followed.

Implement efficient ordering and return processes and reducing medication wastage.

Provide training and support on the legal, safe and secure handling of medicines, including the implementation of the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS).

Promotion of Electronic Repeat Dispensing (eRD) and online ordering

Develop relationships with other pharmacy professionals and members of the multi-disciplinary team to support integration across health and social care including primary care, community pharmacy, secondary care and mental health.

Support practice reception teams in streaming general prescription requests, so as to allow GPs and clinical pharmacists to review the more clinically complex requests.

Support the implementation of national prescribing policies and guidance within GP practices, care homes and other primary care settings.

Support the PCN to deliver on QIPP agenda, QOF and locally commissioned enhanced services

Supporting quality improvement measures and contributing to the Quality and Outcomes Framework and enhanced services;

Support the PCN in reviewing and developing practice policies for CQC requirements

General

The postholder will:

Develop a culture that promotes equality and values diversity. The postholder must be aware of and committed to the Equality and Diversity policies of the appointing GP Federation and comply with all the requirements of these policies and actively promote Equality and Diversity issues relevant to the post.

Ensure the principles of openness, transparency and candor are observed and upheld in all working practices.

The post holder will have, or acquire through training provided by the organisation, the appropriate level of safeguarding and knowledge, skills and practice required for the postand be aware of and comply with the organisations safeguarding protection policies and procedures.

Ensure that any infection prevention and control issues are reported to the line manager/Infection Prevention and Control

Equality and diversity:

The post-holder will support the equality, diversity and rights of patients, carers and colleagues, to include:

Acting in a way that recognises the importance of peoples rights, interpreting them in a way that is consistent with practice procedures and policies, and current legislation

Respecting the privacy, dignity, needs and beliefs of patients, carers and colleagues

Behaving in a manner which is welcoming to and of the individual, is non- judgmental and respects their circumstances, feelings priorities and rights.

Personal/Professional development:

The post-holder will participate in any training programme implemented by the practice as part of this employment, with such training to include:

• Participation in an annual individual performance review, including taking responsibility for maintaining a record of own personal and/or professional development
• Taking responsibility for own development, learning and performance and demonstrating skills and activities to others who are undertaking similar work

Quality:

The post-holder will strive to maintain quality within the practice, and will:

Alert other team members to issues of quality and risk

Assess own performance and take accountability for own actions, either directly or under supervision

Contribute to the effectiveness of the team by reflecting on own and team activities and making suggestions on ways to improve and enhance theteams performance

Work effectively with individuals in other agencies to meet patients needs

Effectively manage own time, workload and resources

Supervision

The postholder will have access to appropriate clinical supervision and an appropriate named individual in the PCN to provide general advice and support on a day to day basis.

Experience

Essential

• - Evidence of continued professional development (CPD).
• - Experience of working as a qualified, registered pharmacy technician in primary care, community or hospital pharmacy.

Desirable

• - Demonstrate ability to influence and persuade partners and stakeholders of the respective merits of different options, innovations, new opportunities and challenges.

Qualifications

Essential

• - Professional registration with GPhC.
• - Meets the specific qualification and training requirements as specified by the GPhC criteria to register as a Pharmacy Technician.
• - Meets the specific qualification and training requirements as specified by the GPhC criteria to register as a Pharmacy Technician; enrolled in, undertaking or qualified from, an approved training pathway. For example, the Primary Care Pharmacy Educational Pathway (PCPEP) or Medicines Optimisation in Care Homes (MOCH).
• - BTEC/NVQ level 3 or equivalent in pharmaceutical sciences

Attributes

Essential

• Attributes
• - Works effectively independently and as a member of a team.
• - Flexible approach to meet service needs and ensure a stakeholder focused response.
• - Self-motivated and proactive.
• - Continued commitment to improve skills and ability in new areas of work.
• - Able to undertake the demands of the post with reasonable adjustments if required.
• - Independently mobile to be able to work across several sites and travel to meet with stakeholders.
• - Adaptability, flexibility and ability to cope with uncertainty and change.
• - Demonstrate ability to work in a busy environment; ability to deal with both urgent and important tasks and to prioritise effectively whilst also supporting others.
• - Excellent time keeping and prioritisation skills
• - Is working under appropriate clinical supervision to ensure safe, effective and efficient use of medicines

Skills and Competencies

Essential

• - Computer literate with an ability to use the required GP clinical systems (desirable) and Microsoft office packages (essential).
• Able to analyse and interpret prescribing data.
• - Has attention to detail, able to work accurately, identifying errors quickly and easily able to effectively manage allocated resources.
• - Has a planned and organised approach with an ability to prioritise their own workload to meet strict deadlines.
• - Able to think analytically; anticipating obstacles and thinking ahead; using analytical techniques to draw logical solutions to problems.
• - Excellent communication skills, verbal and written, with the ability to adjust communication style and content to suit the audience.
• - Excellent verbal and written communication skills with team members, patients, carers, and other healthcare professionals. Whilst recognising peoples needs for alternative methods of communication.
• - Influencing and negotiating skills
• - An excellent understanding of data protection and confidentiality issues

Desirable

• - Computer literate with an ability to use the required GP clinical systems (desirable) and Microsoft office packages (essential).
• - Understand the aims of current healthcare policy within the PCN.

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).