Job responsibilities
JOB PURPOSE
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 district. 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 RESPONSIBILITIES
Clinical:
- Undertake patient facing and patient supporting roles to ensure effective medicines use, through shared decision-making conversations with patients.
- Carry out medicine’s 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 Structure 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 Administration:
- 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.
- Support the PCN in reviewing and developing practice policies for CQC requirements
General:
- Develop a culture that promotes equality and values diversity. The post holder 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 post and be aware of and comply with the organisation’s 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 equality, diversity and rights of patients, carers & colleagues, to include:
- Acting in a way that recognises the importance of people’s 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, 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 the team’s performance.
- Work effectively with individuals in other agencies to meet patients’ needs.
- Effectively manage own time, workload, and resources
Please download the supporting documentation for full role details and to support your application.
