Job responsibilities
JOB PURPOSE
• The post holder will deliver core clinical pharmacist duties to our practices within the East Cornwall Primary Care Network as one of the multidisciplinary clinical team. Duties will include medicines reviews, independent prescribing, diagnosis and treatment of non-complex acute illness, patient clinical disease reviews and providing expertise to the wider clinical and administrative teams within the practice.
KEY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
CLINICAL RESPONSIBILITIES
• Identify patients requiring medication review and conduct appropriate medication review clinics or home visits if required by the organisation/practices and liaise with carers, Community Health teams or social care staff in order to optimise drug therapy, reduce polypharmacy and minimise unnecessary waste, communicating directly with patients as necessary.
• Provide medicines and long term disease advice and support to GP practice staff, practice registered patients, and the wider practice team such as community staff (district nurses, mid-wives, and physiotherapists) where appropriate.
• Help support the safe and effective operation of the prescribing system in the GP practice, including updating repeat medication regimes, issuing of appropriate acute prescriptions, ordering relevant laboratory testing, and where necessary completing patient referrals (for example audiology, x-ray, diabetes prevention schemes).
• Deal with appropriate patient presentations, such as minor illnesses, without direct GP involvement/ Provide pharmaceutical input to chronic disease management, as appropriate Provide ‘make every contact count’ public health education interventions to patients.
• Provide pharmaceutical support to a designated group of GP practices or care settings to enable them to develop, implement and monitor an agreed prescribing plan which meets the objectives of the medicines management plan.
• Assist practices/ care settings in developing formularies, guidelines and policies to ensure the implementation of NICE guidelines, National Service Frameworks and the requirements of the medicines-related aspects of the GMS contract.
• Advise GPs, care staff and primary health care teams on risk management processes relating to the prescribing and monitoring of specialist drugs e.g. controlled drugs and those subject to shared care arrangements.
• Support practices to review specific areas of prescribing, specified by the line management or identified with the GP prescribing lead, including the interpretation of e-PACT data and the use of practice information to review prescribing and identify areas for action.
• Assist with the development and ongoing review of practice policy with regard to repeat prescribing systems and repeat dispensing to encourage the implementation of prescribing guidance and monitoring guidelines where appropriate.
• Liaise with Community Pharmacists to encourage them to reinforce changes made, encouraging them to identify savings which can be achieved with regard to generics, dose optimisations etc. and to assist in building their relationship with the practice.
• Answer any medicine related queries from GPs, care settings, practice staff, PALS, social care staff and the general public in a timely and appropriate manner, using professional judgement where specific guidance is unavailable.
• Deliver ‘Structured Medication Reviews’ and participate in care home medication review rounds to ensure avoidable harm from medication is minimised.
• Facilitate and participate in multi-disciplinary meetings related to prescribing topics and to engage in the training of other healthcare professionals and practice staff on matters relating to medicines usage.
• Attend primary/secondary care interface meetings in designated specialist therapeutic areas to improve the cost effective and evidence based use of medicines across locality and develop links with the hospital pharmacists involved in these areas.
• Undertake clinical audits of prescribing in areas identified by yourself and agreed by the PCN or as directed by the PCN, feedback the results and implement changes in conjunction with the relevant practice team.
• Undertake any other duties appropriate to the grade as allocated by line management.
Responsibilities for physical and financial resources
• Contribute to, and promote the delivery of, safe, effective and cost efficient prescribing across primary and secondary care to achieve the most effective use of the medicines resource at both practice level and across the entire health economy
• Analyse and use web based prescribing data (PACT and e-PACT) at practice to facilitate appropriate prescribing habits and keep drug budgets within limits. Evaluate this information to identify areas of increased expenditure and advise on actions to be taken to ensure prescribing is cost effective and evidence based.
• Evaluate GP practices’ position with respect to QOF or other incentive schemes including achievement of both financial and quality targets and communicate this to practices updating the plan with the practice.
• Be responsible for the correct use and security of all equipment, information and data used.
Communications and leadership
• Be required to communicate information, sometimes complex, to a wide range of individuals and groups with different levels of understanding using a well developed range of verbal and written skills.
• Provide written reports on therapeutic topics and summaries of clinical evidence for doctors as well as devising easily understood information for patients and practice staff.
• Demonstrate tact, diplomacy and negotiating skills to engage with doctors to persuade them to work towards objectives, overcoming resistance to change.
• Develop good working relationships with the whole range of practice staff and a network of contacts within the locality and secondary care to provide problem-solving advice on a wide range of matters relating to medicines.
• Advise community pharmacists in the vicinity of where prescribing and medicines management developments and/or changes are planned so they may anticipate the impact on their pharmacies and give a consistent message to patients.
• Work in a discreet and professional manner, respecting and maintaining the confidentiality of patient specific and prescribing data (both at practice and organisational/locality wide level).
• Be aware of, and monitor, the advice given to practices by representatives of the pharmaceutical industry and to counter the impact of inappropriate information to prescribers.
Policy and Service Development
• Support the development of prescribing policy in individual practices and care settings, the implementation of that policy and be involved in the development of policy in discreet areas of prescribing, involving working with clinicians in both primary and secondary care.
Planning and organising
• Be able to prioritise and meet set deadlines particularly when under pressure.
• Take the delegated lead responsibility for specific projects or key specialist areas of pharmacy practice as identified by line management.
• Organise and manage their personal workload in the face of competing priorities, managing their own time effectively and working closely with a range of practice staff and the administration and technical staff in the Medicines Management department.
• Record and report to line management and practices on the work undertaken and the benefits produced, in a timely manner, using tools such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and e-mail.
Analysis and data management
• Critically appraise information from drug industry to inform other staff members and healthcare professionals in practices.
• Assist in analysing medicines data, including interpreting e-PACT data (web-based electronic prescribing data analysis system) and providing reports at practice level for designated practices.
• Demonstrate good computer literacy (e-mail, word, excel, PowerPoint, on-line medicines information databases).
• Promote and be an advocate for the use of local formularies in practices in both written and electronic format ensuring that the formulary is the cornerstone for all prescribing practice in primary care.
Work complexity: Mental, physical, emotional effort and working conditions
• Be a car driver and work across multiple sites on a daily basis.
• Use a VDU for significant amounts of the time e.g. email, prescribing data analysis, web searching and report writing.
• Be required to concentrate on tasks to ensure accuracy around practice work e.g. recommendations to GPs and changing prescriptions on the computer which, if incorrect, could lead to serious harm to a patient.
• Deal with queries, or complaints, from patients who may be distressed or unhappy with changes made to their medication, either face-to face or on the telephone.
• Be required to negotiate with practice staff (including GPs, practice nurses, practice managers and health professionals) who may be unhappy when challenged about their practices relating to prescribing or medicines management.
• Manage a competing and frequently changing workload, responding rapidly to new national or local policy, guidance and/or new legislation.
• Work in a discreet and professional manner, respecting the contractor status of the GP practices and to maintain confidentiality of information, including Prescribing And CosT (PACT) data, at all times in accordance with the Data Protection Act and Caldicott guidance (at practice level).
For more information on key duties and responsibilities, please find attached the full job description.
