Job summary
The post holder is a pharmacist, who acts within their professional boundaries, supporting and working alongside a team of pharmacists in general practice. In this role they will be supported by a senior clinical pharmacist who will develop, manage, and mentor them.
The post holder will work as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a patient-facing role. The post holder will take responsibility for areas of chronic disease management within the practice and undertake clinical medication reviews to proactively manage patients with complex polypharmacy.
The post holder will provide primary support to general practice staff with regards to prescription and medication queries. They will help support the repeat prescription system, deal with acute prescription requests, and medicines reconciliation on transfer of care and systems for safer prescribing, providing expertise in clinical medicines advice while addressing both public and social care needs of patient in the GP practice (s).
The post holder will provide clinical leadership on medicines optimisation and quality improvement and manage some aspects of the quality and outcomes framework and enhanced services.
The post holder will ensure that the practice integrates with community and hospital pharmacy to help utilise skill mix, improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare, and help manage workload.
We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role.
Main duties of the job
Patient facing Long-term condition Clinics
See (where appropriate) patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required (e. g COPD, asthma).
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.
Patient facing Clinical Medication Review
Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for senior clinical pharmacist, nurses and or GP on prescribing and monitoring.
Patient facing domiciliary clinical medication review
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.
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.
About us
Tower Hamlets GP Care Group (The Care Group) was incorporated as a community interest company limited by shares in September 2014. Every general practice in Tower Hamlets owns one share of £1. The Care Group was formed to manage borough level contracts on behalf of the practices, deliver primary care led services and support general practices, and to be the provider voice of primary care in the wider health and social care system.
Read up more about Tower Hamlets GP Care Group, click here: https://www.gpcaregroup.org/
The Care Group is also a member of Tower Hamlets Together, a place-based integrated partnership, which includes Bart's Health, East London NHS Foundation Trust, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and the Council for Voluntary Services.
Click here to know more about Tower Hamlets Together partnership- https://www.towerhamletstogether.com/
The key priorities for the Care Group are:
Innovation and support for primary care
Being a great place to work
Integrating primary and community care
Providing of high-quality cost-effective care to local people
Influencing improvements in health outcomes
Job description
Job responsibilities
Main duties of the role
(1) Patient facing Long term condition Clinics
- See (where appropriate) patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required (e.g., COPD, asthma).
- 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.
(2) Patient facing Clinical Medication Review
- Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for senior clinical pharmacist, nurses and/or GP on prescribing and monitoring.
(3) Patient facing domiciliary clinical medication review
- 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.
(4) 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.
(5) Patient facing medicines support
- Provide patient facing clinics for those with questions, queries, and concerns about their medicines in the practice.
(6) Telephone medicines support
- Provide a telephone help line for patients with questions, queries, and concerns about their medicines.
(7) Medicine information to practice staff and patients
- Answers relevant 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.
- Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.
(8) Unplanned hospital admissions
- Review the use of medicines most 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 highrisk patient groups.
(9) 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 highrisk groups of patients (e.g., those with medicine compliance aids or those in care homes).
(10) Signposting
- Ensure that patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for the appropriate level of care within an appropriate period e.g., pathology results, common/minor ailments, acute conditions, long term condition reviews etc.
(11) Repeat prescribing
- Produce and implement a practice repeat prescribing policy.
- 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.
(12) 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.
(13) Service development
- 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).
(14) Information management
- Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision- making.
(15) Medicines quality improvement
- Undertake clinical audits of prescribing in areas directed by the GPs, feedback the results and implement changes in conjunction with the practice team.
(16) Medicines safety
- Implement changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local and national guidance.
(17) Implementation of local and national guidelines and formulary recommendations
- Monitor practice prescribing against the local health economys 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 the practices computer system.
- Auditing practices compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance.
- Provide newsletters or bulletins on important prescribing messages.
(18) Education and Training
- Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation.
(19) Care Quality Commission
- Work with the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.
(20) Public health
- To support public health campaigns.
- To provide specialist knowledge on all public health programmes available to the general public.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Main duties of the role
(1) Patient facing Long term condition Clinics
- See (where appropriate) patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required (e.g., COPD, asthma).
- 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.
(2) Patient facing Clinical Medication Review
- Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for senior clinical pharmacist, nurses and/or GP on prescribing and monitoring.
(3) Patient facing domiciliary clinical medication review
- 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.
(4) 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.
(5) Patient facing medicines support
- Provide patient facing clinics for those with questions, queries, and concerns about their medicines in the practice.
(6) Telephone medicines support
- Provide a telephone help line for patients with questions, queries, and concerns about their medicines.
(7) Medicine information to practice staff and patients
- Answers relevant 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.
- Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.
(8) Unplanned hospital admissions
- Review the use of medicines most 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 highrisk patient groups.
(9) 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 highrisk groups of patients (e.g., those with medicine compliance aids or those in care homes).
(10) Signposting
- Ensure that patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for the appropriate level of care within an appropriate period e.g., pathology results, common/minor ailments, acute conditions, long term condition reviews etc.
(11) Repeat prescribing
- Produce and implement a practice repeat prescribing policy.
- 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.
(12) 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.
(13) Service development
- 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).
(14) Information management
- Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision- making.
(15) Medicines quality improvement
- Undertake clinical audits of prescribing in areas directed by the GPs, feedback the results and implement changes in conjunction with the practice team.
(16) Medicines safety
- Implement changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local and national guidance.
(17) Implementation of local and national guidelines and formulary recommendations
- Monitor practice prescribing against the local health economys 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 the practices computer system.
- Auditing practices compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance.
- Provide newsletters or bulletins on important prescribing messages.
(18) Education and Training
- Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation.
(19) Care Quality Commission
- Work with the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.
(20) Public health
- To support public health campaigns.
- To provide specialist knowledge on all public health programmes available to the general public.
Person Specification
Experience
Essential
- Demonstrates accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision.
Abilities
Essential
- Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
Qualifications
Essential
- Mandatory registration with General Pharmaceutical Council with a Masters degree in pharmacy (MPharm) (or equivalent).
Knowledge
Essential
- Excellent interpersonal, influencing, negotiating, verbal and written communication skills
Other requirements
Essential
- Self motivated and with a hunger to learn and implement the learning.
Person Specification
Experience
Essential
- Demonstrates accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision.
Abilities
Essential
- Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
Qualifications
Essential
- Mandatory registration with General Pharmaceutical Council with a Masters degree in pharmacy (MPharm) (or equivalent).
Knowledge
Essential
- Excellent interpersonal, influencing, negotiating, verbal and written communication skills
Other requirements
Essential
- Self motivated and with a hunger to learn and implement the learning.
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).
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.
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
