Job summary
We have an exciting opportunity for an enthusiastic, committed, and motivated pharmacist to join our established integrated Primary Care Clinical Pharmacy Team.
As a team we are committed to the development of primary care pharmacy. We have been established for over 20 years developing primary care pharmacy services to meet the needs of our practices and patients in Dudley.
The post holder will work as part of a multi-disciplinary team to provide medicines optimisation and prescribing support activities within the Primary Care Clinical Pharmacy Team (PCCPT) delivering on a comprehensive workplan which will include the PCN DES, Black Country ICB work streams and strategic PCN initiatives. The post holder will contribute to safer patient care through provision of clinical audits, medication review and regular review and monitoring of patients based on clinical need. The post holder will act as an advisory resource to practices in relation to medicines optimisation, medicines waste, medicines adherence, admissions avoidance and repeat prescribing.
Main duties of the job
Prior experience of working in General Practice or a similar clinical role would be useful but not essential.
An initial induction programme will be offered as well as ongoing training and supervision working alongside clinical pharmacists and pharmacy technicians within the team. We have a strong emphasis on team working, supporting each other to professionally develop and meet our key objective of improving the health and wellbeing of our local population.
If you have a passion for providing patient centred healthcare and are committed to developing as a clinical pharmacist we would really like to hear from you!
About us
We are looking for exceptional individuals with the drive and enthusiasm to change how healthcare is delivered and make a real difference to the people we serve.
With over 20 years of experience we are a well-established innovative team that is committed to the development of clinical pharmacy services in primary care working in collaborative with our local partners.
We provide support and development opportunities for our team and pride ourselves in allowing colleagues to flourish in their careers supporting their personal development whilst ensuring we make a positive contribution to improving the health of our population.
We are embedding values based and inclusive recruitment practices to ensure that all applicants, from all backgrounds, have an equal chance of success in achieving a role with us.
Anyone that works with us will share in our commitments and promote and uphold them throughout their daily activities.
As a team we will consider requests for flexible working where possible and dependent on the service needs. For most roles, the following types of flexibility are possible: flexible hours, compressed hours and more.
Job description
Job responsibilities
As per Job Description and Person Specification.
The duties and responsibilities are intended to be indicative but not exhaustive of the responsibilities of the post holder. Primary Care Clinical Pharmacy Team will develop flexible work programmes to meet the needs of our practices and population, as such the requirements of the job may develop and change.
The post offers candidates the opportunity to become involved in a wide range of patient facing activities such as chronic disease management, structured medication reviews, medicines reconciliation, safer prescribing initiatives as well as our work to support population health interventions to address health inequalities.
You will be required to undertake clinical structured medication reviews with patients taking high risk drugs (within scope of professional practice) and review for ongoing need and appropriate monitoring, making recommendations to senior staff/GP as appropriate. Arrange suitable follow up appointment(s) to monitor the effect of any changes implemented.
Although we support flexible working opportunities our primary care clinical pharmacist roles are predominately practice based to ensure we are working closely with our multidisciplinary teams.
You should have excellent written and verbal communication skills as well as experience of influencing others and conducting clinical medication reviews.
The post holder will be a pharmacist with an MPharm degree (or equivalent) plus 1 year pre-registration and at least 2 years experience of working as a registered pharmacist, ideally with some experience working within a general practice environment.
The post holder will work within their professional boundaries as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a patient-facing role.
The post holder will be working towards completing the Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway or will be enrolled onto the CPPE pathway on successful application. The post holder may be undertaking or planning to undertake a Post Graduate Pharmacy Clinical Diploma along with an IP qualification although this is not essential.
The post holder will provide primary support to general practice staff with respect to prescription and medication queries. They will help support the repeat prescription system, deal with acute prescription requests, medicines reconciliation on transfer of care and systems for safer prescribing. They will contribute to audit and quality improvement including promoting and support of antimicrobial stewardship. They will reduce risk and improve medicines related care through provision of direct patient facing and remote medication review.
The following job description outline should be read alongside the Job Description:
Key priorities for this role are to:
- Provide support and guidance to pharmacy technicians, students and other pharmacists working within the team.
- Plan own workload to ensure high priority patient specific and other activities are dealt with in a timely fashion.
- Work with colleagues in the PCCPT to carry out clinical audits and implement required changes to patient care in line with the PCN Direct Enhance Service, Investment and Impact Fund Indicators and medicines safety and quality workstreams.
- Optimise benefit of prescribed medication through high levels of compliance and concordance achieved by support for the patient and carers.
- Provide professional input to practice medicines related activities including review and support for repeat prescribing systems and medicines related policies and procedures.
- Liaise with local community pharmacy colleagues to ensure accurate and effective medication management and support collaborative working.
- Provide direct care to patients with long-term conditions and other clinical areas within scope of professional practice, communicating specialist advice in accordance with care plans which have been devised in accordance with local and national guidance on best practice.
- Support the care of complex patients in their own homes or in nursing or residential accommodation as part of a multidisciplinary team.
- Provide professional leadership on matters relating to medicines optimisation and quality improvement, including antimicrobial stewardship, opioid deprescribing and polypharmacy structured medication reviews.
- Support service development through proposing and implementing changes for your clinical area which may also impact on other disciplines.
- Produce monthly reports on work completed.
Primary Duties and Areas of Responsibility
- Establish and promote safer prescribing practice.
- Contribute to medicines safety work through the analysis and prioritisation of high risk drugs monitoring, medication safety indicators and other practice based clinical reviews to promote safe and effective prescribing. Support the process of implementing changes to prescribing and guidance for practitioners.
- Contribute to practice based/NHS Trust incident reporting systems with an emphasis on medicines safety and the dissemination of learning.
- Provide patient facing clinics for those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines in the practice.
- Undertake clinical structured medication reviews with patients taking high risk drugs (within scope of professional practice) and review for ongoing need and appropriate monitoring, making recommendations to senior staff/GP as appropriate. Arrange suitable follow up appointment(s) to monitor the effect of any changes implemented.
- Undertake clinical structured medication reviews in vulnerable housebound patients at risk of hospital admission and harm from poor use of medicines, review for ongoing need and appropriate monitoring, prescribing within scope of professional practice or making recommendations to senior staff/GP as appropriate. Arrange suitable follow up appointment(s) to monitor the effect of any changes implemented.
- Provide a telephone help line for patients with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines.
- Answers medicine related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy) and patients with queries about medicines, suggesting and recommending solutions within scope of practice, escalating to senior colleagues where necessary. Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.
- Support safe and timely medicines reconciliation.
Medicines Optimisation in practice
- Support Implementation of a practice repeat prescribing policy. Support the repeat prescribing reauthorisation process by reviewing patient requests for repeat prescriptions and reviewing medicines reaching review dates. Reduce medicines risk by utilising clinical system alerts and ensuring patients are booked in for necessary monitoring tests where required.
- Contribute to clinical audits and improvement projects (prescribing incentive schemes) through collaboration colleagues such as GP registrars, practice managers, community services, public health etc.
- Utilise clinical system search results and prescribing data to contribute to identification of areas for intervention. Promote evidence-based practice and interventions to improve patient outcomes.
- Support antimicrobial stewardship initiatives and promote appropriate prescribing of antimicrobials.
- To reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care, step down care from care homes, including identifying and following up unexplained changes preparing recommendations for management and rectification of anomalous changes to discuss with senior pharmacist prior to implementation and with advice from GP if necessary.
- Liaise with community pharmacists and patients to communicate changes to medication and ensure safe ongoing care.
Collaborative Working Relationships
- Recognise the roles of other colleagues within the organisation and their role to patient care.
- Demonstrate ability to work as part of a team.
- Can recognise personal limitations and refer to more appropriate colleague(s) when necessary.
- Actively work towards developing and maintaining effective working relationships both within and outside the practice and locality.
- Foster and maintain strong links with all services across locality.
- Demonstrates ability to integrate general practice with community and hospital pharmacy teams.
- Liaises with colleagues on prescribing related matters to ensure consistency of patient care and to benefit from peer support.
Knowledge, Skills and Experience Required
- Has an awareness of the breadth of common long-term conditions that are likely to be seen in a general medical practice.
- Minimum of 2 years post registration experience in pharmacy, as demonstrated within a practice portfolio.
- Accountable for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision within scope of competence.
- Uses skills in a range of routine situations requiring analysis or comparison of a range of options able to analyse and interpret complex information including conflicting elements related to audit, prescribing data and care of patients with multiple conditions.
- Recognises priorities when problem-solving and identifies deviations from normal pattern and is able to refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate.
- Able to follow legal, ethical, professional and organisational policies/procedures and codes of conduct.
- Involves patients in decisions about prescribed medicines and supporting adherence as per NICE guidelines.
Job description
Job responsibilities
As per Job Description and Person Specification.
The duties and responsibilities are intended to be indicative but not exhaustive of the responsibilities of the post holder. Primary Care Clinical Pharmacy Team will develop flexible work programmes to meet the needs of our practices and population, as such the requirements of the job may develop and change.
The post offers candidates the opportunity to become involved in a wide range of patient facing activities such as chronic disease management, structured medication reviews, medicines reconciliation, safer prescribing initiatives as well as our work to support population health interventions to address health inequalities.
You will be required to undertake clinical structured medication reviews with patients taking high risk drugs (within scope of professional practice) and review for ongoing need and appropriate monitoring, making recommendations to senior staff/GP as appropriate. Arrange suitable follow up appointment(s) to monitor the effect of any changes implemented.
Although we support flexible working opportunities our primary care clinical pharmacist roles are predominately practice based to ensure we are working closely with our multidisciplinary teams.
You should have excellent written and verbal communication skills as well as experience of influencing others and conducting clinical medication reviews.
The post holder will be a pharmacist with an MPharm degree (or equivalent) plus 1 year pre-registration and at least 2 years experience of working as a registered pharmacist, ideally with some experience working within a general practice environment.
The post holder will work within their professional boundaries as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a patient-facing role.
The post holder will be working towards completing the Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway or will be enrolled onto the CPPE pathway on successful application. The post holder may be undertaking or planning to undertake a Post Graduate Pharmacy Clinical Diploma along with an IP qualification although this is not essential.
The post holder will provide primary support to general practice staff with respect to prescription and medication queries. They will help support the repeat prescription system, deal with acute prescription requests, medicines reconciliation on transfer of care and systems for safer prescribing. They will contribute to audit and quality improvement including promoting and support of antimicrobial stewardship. They will reduce risk and improve medicines related care through provision of direct patient facing and remote medication review.
The following job description outline should be read alongside the Job Description:
Key priorities for this role are to:
- Provide support and guidance to pharmacy technicians, students and other pharmacists working within the team.
- Plan own workload to ensure high priority patient specific and other activities are dealt with in a timely fashion.
- Work with colleagues in the PCCPT to carry out clinical audits and implement required changes to patient care in line with the PCN Direct Enhance Service, Investment and Impact Fund Indicators and medicines safety and quality workstreams.
- Optimise benefit of prescribed medication through high levels of compliance and concordance achieved by support for the patient and carers.
- Provide professional input to practice medicines related activities including review and support for repeat prescribing systems and medicines related policies and procedures.
- Liaise with local community pharmacy colleagues to ensure accurate and effective medication management and support collaborative working.
- Provide direct care to patients with long-term conditions and other clinical areas within scope of professional practice, communicating specialist advice in accordance with care plans which have been devised in accordance with local and national guidance on best practice.
- Support the care of complex patients in their own homes or in nursing or residential accommodation as part of a multidisciplinary team.
- Provide professional leadership on matters relating to medicines optimisation and quality improvement, including antimicrobial stewardship, opioid deprescribing and polypharmacy structured medication reviews.
- Support service development through proposing and implementing changes for your clinical area which may also impact on other disciplines.
- Produce monthly reports on work completed.
Primary Duties and Areas of Responsibility
- Establish and promote safer prescribing practice.
- Contribute to medicines safety work through the analysis and prioritisation of high risk drugs monitoring, medication safety indicators and other practice based clinical reviews to promote safe and effective prescribing. Support the process of implementing changes to prescribing and guidance for practitioners.
- Contribute to practice based/NHS Trust incident reporting systems with an emphasis on medicines safety and the dissemination of learning.
- Provide patient facing clinics for those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines in the practice.
- Undertake clinical structured medication reviews with patients taking high risk drugs (within scope of professional practice) and review for ongoing need and appropriate monitoring, making recommendations to senior staff/GP as appropriate. Arrange suitable follow up appointment(s) to monitor the effect of any changes implemented.
- Undertake clinical structured medication reviews in vulnerable housebound patients at risk of hospital admission and harm from poor use of medicines, review for ongoing need and appropriate monitoring, prescribing within scope of professional practice or making recommendations to senior staff/GP as appropriate. Arrange suitable follow up appointment(s) to monitor the effect of any changes implemented.
- Provide a telephone help line for patients with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines.
- Answers medicine related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy) and patients with queries about medicines, suggesting and recommending solutions within scope of practice, escalating to senior colleagues where necessary. Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.
- Support safe and timely medicines reconciliation.
Medicines Optimisation in practice
- Support Implementation of a practice repeat prescribing policy. Support the repeat prescribing reauthorisation process by reviewing patient requests for repeat prescriptions and reviewing medicines reaching review dates. Reduce medicines risk by utilising clinical system alerts and ensuring patients are booked in for necessary monitoring tests where required.
- Contribute to clinical audits and improvement projects (prescribing incentive schemes) through collaboration colleagues such as GP registrars, practice managers, community services, public health etc.
- Utilise clinical system search results and prescribing data to contribute to identification of areas for intervention. Promote evidence-based practice and interventions to improve patient outcomes.
- Support antimicrobial stewardship initiatives and promote appropriate prescribing of antimicrobials.
- To reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care, step down care from care homes, including identifying and following up unexplained changes preparing recommendations for management and rectification of anomalous changes to discuss with senior pharmacist prior to implementation and with advice from GP if necessary.
- Liaise with community pharmacists and patients to communicate changes to medication and ensure safe ongoing care.
Collaborative Working Relationships
- Recognise the roles of other colleagues within the organisation and their role to patient care.
- Demonstrate ability to work as part of a team.
- Can recognise personal limitations and refer to more appropriate colleague(s) when necessary.
- Actively work towards developing and maintaining effective working relationships both within and outside the practice and locality.
- Foster and maintain strong links with all services across locality.
- Demonstrates ability to integrate general practice with community and hospital pharmacy teams.
- Liaises with colleagues on prescribing related matters to ensure consistency of patient care and to benefit from peer support.
Knowledge, Skills and Experience Required
- Has an awareness of the breadth of common long-term conditions that are likely to be seen in a general medical practice.
- Minimum of 2 years post registration experience in pharmacy, as demonstrated within a practice portfolio.
- Accountable for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision within scope of competence.
- Uses skills in a range of routine situations requiring analysis or comparison of a range of options able to analyse and interpret complex information including conflicting elements related to audit, prescribing data and care of patients with multiple conditions.
- Recognises priorities when problem-solving and identifies deviations from normal pattern and is able to refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate.
- Able to follow legal, ethical, professional and organisational policies/procedures and codes of conduct.
- Involves patients in decisions about prescribed medicines and supporting adherence as per NICE guidelines.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Masters degree in pharmacy (MPharm) or equivalent (BPharm)
- Sufficient Post Qualification Experience
Registration
Essential
- Mandatory registration with General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)
Skills and Knowledge
Desirable
- An appreciation of the nature of primary care prescribing, concepts of rational prescribing and strategies for improving prescribing
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- An appreciation of the nature of GPs and general practices
- Excellent interpersonal, influencing and negotiating skills.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Masters degree in pharmacy (MPharm) or equivalent (BPharm)
- Sufficient Post Qualification Experience
Registration
Essential
- Mandatory registration with General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)
Skills and Knowledge
Desirable
- An appreciation of the nature of primary care prescribing, concepts of rational prescribing and strategies for improving prescribing
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- An appreciation of the nature of GPs and general practices
- Excellent interpersonal, influencing and negotiating skills.
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.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Additional information
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.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
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
The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust
Address
Brierley Hill Health and Social Care Centre
2nd Floor Brierley Hill Health & Social Care Centre
Brierley Hill
DY5 1RU
Employer's website
https://www.dgft.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)
