Job responsibilities
Where a PCN employs or engages one or more Pharmacy Technicians under the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, the PCN must ensure that each Pharmacy Technician has the key clinical, technical and administrative responsibilities as outlined below for delivering health services.
The post holder is aPharmacy Technicianand is an integral part of the general practice team, working within their professional boundaries in each practice within the Primary Care Network (PCN).
This role will work under the supervision of the clinical pharmacist to ensure the safe, accurate and timely supply of prescribed medication to patients. They will provide technical and administrative support to the clinical pharmacist and clinicians. Thepharmacy technician willsupport the PCN and practice clinical teams with queries around medication from patients.
The pharmacy technician will complete audits around patient safety in the prescribing of medication and present the information for sharing with the clinical team.
The Pharmacy Technician is to undertake the following key responsibilities in delivering health services.
a. Undertake patient facing and patient supporting roles to ensure effective
medicines use, through shared decision-making conversations with
patients
b. Conduct medicines optimisation tasks including effective medicine
administration (e.g., checking inhaler technique), support medication
reviews and medicines reconciliation. Where required, utilise consultation
skills to work in partnership with patients to ensure they use their
medicines effectively
c. Support, as determined by the PCN, medication reviews and medicines
reconciliation for new care home patients and synchronise medicines for
patient transfers between care settings and linking with local community
pharmacists
d. 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
e. Maintain a central role in the clinical aspects of shared care protocols and liaise with specialist pharmacists for more complex patients
f. Support initiatives for antimicrobial stewardship to reduce inappropriate
antibiotic prescribing
g. Assist in the delivery of medicines optimisation and management incentive
schemes and patient safety audits;
h. 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 the Quality and Outcomes Framework and enhanced services;
i. Attend a formal appraisal with your manager at least every 12 months. Once a performance/training objective has been set, progress will be reviewed on a regular basis so that new objectives can be agreed
j. Contribute to public health campaigns (e.g., COVID-19 or flu clinics) through advice or direct care
k. Maintain a clean, tidy, effective working area at all times
The technical and administrative responsibilities of the Pharmacy Technician:
a. Work with the PCN multi-disciplinary team to ensure efficient medicines optimisation including implementing efficient ordering and return processes and reducing wastage
b. Supervise practice reception teams in sorting and streaming general prescription requests so as to allow GPs and clinical pharmacists to review the more clinically complex requests
c. Provide leadership for medicines optimisation systems across PCNs, supporting practices 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
d. Provide training and support on the legal, safe and secure handling of medicines, including the implementation of the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS)
e. Develop relationships with other pharmacy technicians, pharmacists and members of the multi-disciplinary team to support integration of the pharmacy team across health and social care including primary care, community pharmacy, secondary care and mental health
f. Support delivery of QOF, incentive schemes, QIPP and other quality or cost effectiveness initiatives
g. Undertake any tasks consistent with the level of the post and the scope of the role, ensuring that work is delivered in a timely and effective manner
h.
i. Duties may vary from time to time without changing the general character of the post or the level of responsibility.
j. There may be, on occasion, a requirement to carry out other tasks. This will be dependent upon factors such as workload and staffing levels.
