Clinical Pharmacist

Job description

Job responsibilities

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

The post holder will work within their clinical competencies as part of a multi-disciplinary team to provide expertise in clinical medicines management, provide face to face structured medication reviews, manage long term conditions, management of medicines on transfer of care and systems for safer prescribing and support acute prescription request, while addressing both the public health and social care needs of patients in the GP Practice(s) that make up the PCN.

The post holder will perform face to face medication review of patients with polypharmacy especially for older people, people in residential care homes and those with multiple comorbidities. The post holder will provide leadership on quality improvement and clinical audit and well as managing 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.

KEY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for Senior Clinical Pharmacist, Nurses and/or GP on prescribing and monitoring.

Care Home Medication Reviews. Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for the Senior Clinical Pharmacist, Nurses or GPs on prescribing and monitoring. Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration.

Long-term condition clinics. See (where appropriate) patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required (e.g. Respiratory, Cardiovascular and Diabetes). 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.

Domiciliary. 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.

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.

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.

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.

Patient facing medicines support. Provide patient facing clinics for those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines in the Practice.

Provide medicines support for patients with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines.

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).

Medicine information to Practice staff and patients. Answer relevant medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other network staff and Healthcare Teams (e.g. Community Pharmacy, together with patient queries about medicines. Suggesting and recommending solutions. Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.

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

PROMOTE PRESCRIBING QUALITY AND SAFETY INCLUDING:

Support repeat prescribing policy within each PCN Practice. 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.

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).

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

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

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

Implementation of local and national guidelines and formulary recommendations. Monitor Practice prescribing against the local health economy's 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.

Provide education and training to Primary Healthcare Team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation.

Work with the General Practice Teams to ensure the Practices are compliant with Care Quality Commission standards where medicines are involved.

Support public health campaigns. To provide specialist knowledge on all public health programmes available to the general public.

PROMOTE COLLABORATIVE WORKING

Participate in the PCN MDT.

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

Liaise with colleagues including CCG, STP/ICS Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians on prescribing related matters to ensure consistency of patient care and benefit.

Liaise with colleagues including CCG,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 take opportunities to initiate and sustain such relationships.

Liaise with other stakeholders as needed for the collective benefit of patients, including but not limited to:

• Patients and their representatives
• GP, Nurses and other Practice staff
• Social Prescribers, First Contact Physiotherapists, Physicians, Associates and Paramedics.
• Community Pharmacists and support staff
• Other members of the medicines management (MM) team including Pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians and Dieticians
• Locality / GP Prescribing lead
• Locality Managers
• Community Nurses and other Allied Health Professionals
• Hospital staff with responsibilities for prescribing and medicines optimisation

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

• Work with your line Manager to undertake continual personal and professional development, taking an active part in reviewing and developing the role and responsibilities. Adhere to organisational policies and procedures, including confidentiality, safeguarding, lone working, information governance, and health and safety.
• Work with your line Manager to access regular clinical supervision, to enable you to deal effectively with the difficult issues that people present. Review yearly progress and develop clear plans to achieve results within priorities set by others.
• Participate in the delivery of formal education programmes.
• Demonstrate an understanding of current educational policies relevant to working areas of the Practice and keep up to date with relevant clinical practice. Research and Evaluation
• Critically evaluate and review literature.
• Identify where there is a gap in the evidence base to support practice.
• Generate evidence suitable for presentations at practice and local level.
• Apply research evidence base into the workplace. Health and Safety/Risk Management
• Comply at all times with the Health and Safety policies, in particular following safe working procedures and reporting incidents using the organisations Incident Reporting Systems. Comply with the Data Protection Act (2018) and the Access to Health Records Act (1990). Special working conditions.
• The post holder is required to travel independently between work sites and to attend meetings etc hosted by other agencies.
• The post-holder will have contact with body fluids, i.e. wound exudates, urine etc. while in clinical practice.

MISCELLANEOUS

• Work as part of the team to seek feedback, continually improve the service and contribute to business planning.
• Undertake any tasks consistent with the level of the post and the scope of the role, ensuring that work is delivered in a timely and effective manner.
• Duties may vary from time to time, without changing the general character of the post or the level of responsibility.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Mandatory registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council
• Completion of an undergraduate degree in pharmacy and registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council
• Demonstrates and understanding of, and conforms to, relevant standards of practice
• Follows professional and organisational policies/procedures relating to performance management

Desirable

• Membership Primary Care Pharmacy Association (PCPA)
• Membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society
• May hold or be working towards an independent prescribing qualification
• Clinical Diploma
• Special knowledge in areas such as mental health, learning disability or dementia care

Skills and Knowledge

Essential

• In depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidence-based healthcare
• Understanding of the wider determinants of health, including social, economic and environmental factors and their impact on communities
• An appreciation of the nature of primary care prescribing, concepts of rational prescribing and strategies for improving prescribing
• Knowledge of IT systems, including ability to use word processing skills, emails and the internet to create simple plans and reports
• Able to plan, manage, monitor and review general medicine optimisation issues in core areas for long term conditions
• Able to obtain and analyse complex technical information
• Able to gain acceptance for recommendations and influence/motivate/persuade the audience to comply with the recommendations/agreed course of action where there may be significant barriers
• Able to identify and resolve risk management issues according to policy/protocol.
• Able to follow legal, ethical, professional and organisational policies/ procedures and codes of conduct and understand the principles of research governance.

Personal Qualities & Attributes

Essential

• Commitment to reducing health inequalities and proactively working to reach people from all communities
• Demonstrates use of appropriate communication to gain the co-operation of relevant stakeholders (including patients, senior and peer colleagues, and other professionals, other NHS/private organisations, e.g. CCGs)
• Is able to recognise personal limitations and refer to more appropriate colleague(s) when necessary
• Ability to identify risk and assess/manage risk when working with individuals
• Able to work under pressure and meet deadlines
• Demonstrates accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision
• Able to provide leadership and to finish work tasks
• Ability to maintain effective working relationships and to promote collaborative practice with all colleagues
• Demonstrates personal accountability, emotional resilience and works well under pressure
• Ability to organise, plan and prioritise on own initiative, including when under pressure and meeting deadlines
• High level of written and oral communication skills
• Ability to work flexibly and enthusiastically within a team or on own initiative
• Knowledge of and ability to work to policies and procedures, including confidentiality, safeguarding, lone working, information governance, and health and safety

Experience

Essential

• Minimum of two years experience as a pharmacist
• Experience and an awareness of the breadth of common acute and long-terms conditions that are likely to be seen in general practice
• Demonstrates ability to integrate general practice with community and hospital pharmacy teams community groups
• Experience of partnership/collaborative working and of building relationships across a variety of organisations

Other

Essential

• Meets DBS reference standards and has a clear criminal record, in line with the law on spent convictions
• Adaptable
• Self-Motivation
• Safeguarding and other mandatory training
• Immunisation status
• Ability to work flexibly with the ability to travel between sites and undertake domiciliary visits

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

WEB PCN

Address

Claremont Grove

Exmouth

EX8 2JF

Employer's website

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