Clinical Pharmacist

Job responsibilities

Responsible to: Clinical Director, Wisbech Primary Care Network and GP Partners of member practices

Job Purpose:

The Clinical Pharmacist is a pharmacist, who acts within their professional boundaries. In this role they will be supported by the Network Clinical Director who will develop, manage and mentor them.

The Clinical Pharmacist will work as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a patient-facing role in the Wisbech PCN. The PCN has approximately 50,000 patients and comprises of 4 practices North Brink Practice, Trinity Surgery, Clarkson Surgery and Parson Drove Surgery.

The Clinical Pharmacist will work as part of the general practice teams to improve value and outcomes from medicines, as well as consulting with and treating patients directly. This is an evolving role with huge scope for development. This includes providing extra help to manage long-term conditions, care and advice for those on multiple medicines. The role is pivotal to improving the quality of care and ensuring patient safety.

The Clinical Pharmacist 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 patients in the Practice.

The Clinical Pharmacist will provide clinical leadership on medicines optimisation and quality improvement and manage some aspects of the quality and outcomes framework and enhanced services.

Primary Duties and Areas of Responsibility:

Review medicine needs for patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicines optimisation is required.

Undertake clinical medication reviews and produce recommendations for GPs and nurse team on prescribing and monitoring

Undertake care home medication reviews and work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration

Answer relevant medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy) and patients with queries about medicines. Provide follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes

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 high-risk groups of patients (e.g. those with medicine compliance aids or those in care homes)

Ensure that patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for the appropriate level of care within an appropriate period of time e.g. pathology results, common/minor ailments, acute conditions, long term condition reviews etc.

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)

Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision- making

Undertake clinical audits of prescribing in areas directed by the GPs, feedback the results and implement the changes in conjunction with the practice team

Implement changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local and national guidance

Work with the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.

Collaborative Working Relationships:

Recognises the roles of other colleagues within the Network and their role to patient care

Demonstrates the use of appropriate communication to gain the cooperation of relevant stakeholders (including patients, senior and peer colleagues, and other professionals, other NHS/private organisations e.g. CCGs)

Demonstrates ability to work as a member of a team

Is able to recognise personal limitations and refer to more appropriate colleagues when necessary

Actively works towards developing and maintaining effective working relationships both within and outside the Network and locality

Foster and maintain strong links with all services across locality

Explores the potential for collaborative working and takes opportunity to initiate and sustain such relationships

Demonstrates ability to integrate general practice with community and hospital pharmacy teams

Liaises with CCG colleagues including CCG Pharmacists on prescribing related matter to ensure consistency of patient care and benefit

Liaises with CCG pharmacists and heads of Medicines management to benefit from peer support

Liaises with other stakeholders as need for the collaborative benefit of patients including but not limited to patients, GPs and other practice staff, other healthcare professionals including CCG pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, optometrists, dentists, health & social care teams and dieticians etc., locality/GP prescribing leads, locality managers, community nurses and other allied health professionals, community and hospital pharmacy teams, hospital staff with responsibilities for prescribing and medicines optimisation.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience Required:

Minimum 2 years experience as a pharmacist

May hold or be working towards an independent prescribing qualification

Recognises priorities when problem-solving and identifies deviations from normal pattern and is able to refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate

Able to follow legal, ethical, professional and organisational policies/procedures and codes of conduct

Involves patients in decisions about prescribed medicines and supporting adherence as per NICE guidelines

Leadership:

Demonstrate understanding of the pharmacy role in governance and is able to implement this appropriately within the workplace

Demonstrate understanding of, and contributes to, the workplace vision

Demonstrates ability to improve quality within limitations of service

Reviews yearly progress and develops clear plans to achieve results within priorities set by others

Demonstrate ability to motivate self to achieve goals

Promotes diversity and equality in people management techniques and leads by example

Management:

Demonstrate understanding of the implications of national priorities for the team and/or service

Demonstrate understanding of the process for effective resource utilisation

Demonstrate understanding of, and conforms to, relevant standards of practice

Follows professional and organisational policies/procedures relating to performance management

Education, Training and Development:

Understands and demonstrates the characteristics of a role model to members in the team and/or service

Demonstrates ability to conduct teaching and assessment effectively according to a learning plan with supervision from more experienced colleagues

Demonstrates self-development through continuous professional development activity; working alongside senior pharmacist to identify areas to develop

Demonstrates an understanding of current educational policies relevant to working areas of practice and keeps up to date with relevant clinical practice

Ensures appropriate clinical supervision is in place to support development

Enrolled into review and appraisal systems within the practice.

Health and Safety/Risk Management:

The post holder must comply at all times with the Practices Health and safety policies, in particular by following agreed safe working procedures and reporting incidents using the organisations Incident Reporting System.

The post holder will comply with the data Protection Act (2015) and the Access to Health Records Act (1990)

Equality and Diversity:

The post holder must co-operate with all policies and procedures designed to ensure equality of employment. Co-workers, patients and visitors must be treated equally irrespective of gender, ethnic origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion etc.

Respect for Patient Confidentiality:

The post holder should respect patient confidentiality at all times and not divulge patient information unless sanctioned by the requirements of the role.

Special Working Conditions:

The post holder is required to travel independently between practice sites (when applicable), and to attend meetings etc. hosted by other agencies.

The post holder will have contact with body fluids i.e. wound exudates; urine etc. while in clinical practice

Job Description Agreement:

This job description is intended to provide an outline of the key tasks and responsibilities only. There may be other duties required of the post holder commensurate of the position. This description will be open to regular review and may be amended to take into account development within the Network. All members of staff should be prepared to take on additional duties or relinquish existing duties in order to maintain the efficient running of the Network Practices.

This job description is intended as a basic guide to the scope and responsibilities of the post and is not exhaustive. It will be subject to regular review and amendment as necessary in consultation with the post holder.

Skills/Attributes

Essential

• Ability to assimilate, analyse and interpret complex data to assess risks and improve patient safety
• Critical appraisal skills
• Ability to develop effective working relationships at all levels
• Demonstrate ability to identify and implement best practice
• Ability to work independently and within a team and demonstrate the ability to work together with patients and other healthcare professionals to achieve best possible outcomes.
• Ability to work under pressure
• Ability to prioritise and manage own work
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Accountable for own professional actions
• Good understanding of drug budgets and drug costs and how to monitor these
• Ability to apply sound professional judgement to legal and ethical issues
• Computer skills including. word-processing , spreadsheets, presentations, or ECDL
• Ability to travel and work across multiple sites with use of own car (business use included on insurance policy)

Desirable

• Ability to make important decisions in pressured situations
• Ability to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty
• The ability to research and analyse complex information, judging the input required to arrive at robust and accurate conclusions and using these conclusions to inform decision-making

Qualifications

Essential

• Relevant pharmacy degree
• Current registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council
• Independent prescribing qualification

Desirable

• Clinical Diploma
• Membership of the Primary Care Pharmacy Association
• Membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society

Experience

Essential

• Minimum 2 years post registration experience
• Sound clinical and therapeutic knowledge and of evidence based health care.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Able to communicate complex and sensitive information to patients or wider group audiences, using a variety of methods of communication.

Desirable

• An understanding of General Practice, including the different roles within Practice teams and the delivery of services.
• An understanding of General Practice prescribing, factors influencing this, rational prescribing and strategies for improving quality of prescribing.
• Experience of working within Primary Care Team and /or community health team

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).