Job responsibilities
Job Title: Pharmacy Technician
Base: Derby Road and Pinewood Surgery
Hours: Part time
Salary: £ 29,604 to £34,493 full time equivalent
Job Summary
As a Pharmacy Technician you will work as part of a multi-disciplinary team to improve the quality and safety of care offered to our patients. You will have regular contact with patients and working alongside pharmacists will help seek to reduce the workload of GP prescribers in practices.
Key Responsibilities
Undertake patient-facing and patient-supporting roles to ensure effective medicines use through shared-decision-making conversations with patients.
Carry out medicines 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.
Support medication reviews and medicines reconciliation for new care home patients, synchronising medicines for patient transfers between care settings, and linking with local community pharmacists.
Provide specialist expertise, where competent, to address both the public health and social care needs of patients, including lifestyle advice, service information, and help in tackling local health inequalities.
Take a central role in the clinical aspects of shared care protocols and liaise with specialist pharmacists for more complex patients.
Support initiatives for antimicrobial stewardship to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing.
Support the implementation of national prescribing policies and guidance within GP practices, care homes, and other primary care settings. This will be achieved through undertaking clinical audits (e.g. use of antibiotics), supporting quality improvement measures, and contributing to efficient medicines optimisation.
Help guide and advise practice care navigation in sorting and streaming general prescription requests to allow GPs and clinical pharmacists to review the more clinically complex requests.
Provide leadership for medicines optimisation systems across practices, supporting with a range of services to get the best value from medicines by encouraging and implementing Electronic Prescriptions, safe repeat prescribing systems, and timely monitoring and management of high-risk medicines.
Provide training and support on the legal, safe, and secure handling of medicines, including the implementation of the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS).
Plan and organise own workload, and support Clinical Pharmacists and colleagues, as well as patients and carers.
Maintain registration as a pharmacy technician and comply with appropriate professional codes.
Maintain and develop professional competence and expertise, keep up to date with medical/therapeutic evidence and opinion, local and national service, legislation, and policy developments. Agree on objectives and a personal development plan, and participate in the appraisal process.
Attend local, regional, and national meetings of relevance as agreed with the post holders line manager.
Undertake any other duties commensurate with the post holders grade as agreed with the post holders line manager.
Confidentiality
In the course of seeking treatment, patients entrust us with, or allow us to gather, sensitive information in relation to their health and other matters. They do so in confidence and have the right to expect that staff will respect their privacy and act appropriately.
In the performance of the duties outlined in this Job Description, the post-holder will have access to confidential information relating to patients and their carers, staff and other healthcare workers. They may also have access to information relating to Suffolk Primary Care as a business organisation. All such information from any source is to be regarded as strictly confidential
Information relating to patients, carers, colleagues, other healthcare workers or the business of Suffolk Primary Care may only be divulged to authorised persons in accordance with Suffolk Primary Care policies and procedures relating to confidentiality and the protection of personal and sensitive data
Health & Safety
The post-holder will assist in promoting and maintaining their own and others health, safety and security as defined in Suffolk Primary Cares Health & Safety Policy, to include:
- Using personal security systems within the workplace according to Suffolk Primary Care guidelines
- Identifying the risks involved in work activities and undertaking such activities in a way that manages those risks
- Making effective use of training to update knowledge and skills
- Using appropriate infection control procedures, maintaining work areas in a tidy and safe way and free from hazards
- Reporting potential risks identified
Equality and Diversity
The post-holder will support the equality, diversity and rights of patients, carers and colleagues, to include:
- Acting in a way that recognises the importance of peoples rights, interpreting them in a way that is consistent with Suffolk Primary Care 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 Suffolk Primary Care as part of this employment, 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
- Monthly training sessions as necessary
Quality
The post-holder will strive to maintain quality within Suffolk Primary Care, and will:
- Alert other team members to issues of quality and risk
- Assess own performance and take accountability for own actions, either 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 teams performance
- Work effectively with individuals in other agencies to meet patients needs
- Effectively manage own time, workload and resources
Communication
The post-holder should recognize the importance of effective communication within the team and will strive to:
- Communicate effectively with other team members
- Communicate effectively with patients and carers
- Recognise peoples needs for alternative methods of communication and respond accordingly
Contribution to the Implementation of Services
The post-holder will:
- Apply Suffolk Primary Care policies, standards and guidance
- Discuss with other members of the team how the policies, standards and guidelines will affect own work
Participate in audit where appropriate
Equal Opportunities
Suffolk Primary Care is an equal opportunities employer and you will be expected to comply with all relevant policies and procedures
Right to work
All applicants must have the legal right to work in the United Kingdom at the time of application and throughout the duration of employment. This includes holding a valid visa or immigration status that permits employment in the UK, if applicable.
Suffolk Primary Care is unable to employ or continue to employ individuals who do not have, or are unable to provide evidence of, their right to work in the UK.
Code of Conduct
All staff are required to work in accordance with the code of conduct for their professional group (e.g. Nursing and Midwifery Council, Health Professions Council, General Medical Council, NHS Code of Conduct for Senior Managers).
Infection control
It is the responsibility of all staff, whether clinical or non-clinical, to familiarise themselves with and adhere to current policy in relation to the prevention of the spread of infection.
Clinical staff, on entering and leaving clinical areas and between contacts with patients, must apply alcohol gel to their hands and also wash their hands frequently with soap and water. Staff are required to communicate any infection risks to the Infection Control lead.
Complaints
From time to time, complaints may occur, no matter how professional the approach of our staff. All complaints are investigated promptly, and the full co-operation of staff is required. The current guidelines amplify the above points with policies and procedures explained.
Clinical Governance and Risk management
Suffolk Primary Care believes everyone has a role to play in improving and contributing to the quality of care provided to our patients. As an employee of the practice you are expected to take a proactive role in supporting Suffolk Primary Cares clinical governance agenda by:
- Taking part in activities for improving quality such as clinical audit
- Identifying and managing risks through incident and near miss reporting and undertaking risk assessments
- Following polices, guidelines and procedures
- Maintaining continued professional development
- Clinical staff making entries into patient health records are required to follow any Suffolk Primary Care standards of record keeping
Information Quality Assurance
As an employee of Suffolk Primary Care it is expected that you will take due diligence and care in regard to any information collected, recorded, processed or handled by you during the course of your work and that such information is collected, recorded, processed and handled in compliance with Suffolk Primary Care requirements and instructions.
