Senior Clinical Pharmacist

Job responsibilities

KEY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

CLINICAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Run daily telephone triage clinics and manage minor illnesses without direct GP involvement; deal with and sign patient presentations as appropriate.

Provide pharmaceutical input to chronic disease management, ensuring 'make every contact count' public health education interventions to patients. Follow up identified patient groups, targeting better patient adherence with treatment to improve outcomes.

Identify patients and conduct appropriate medication reviews in order to optimise drug therapy, reduce polypharmacy and minimise unnecessary waste, communicating directly with patients as necessary.

Review and action incoming hospital correspondence, particularly with regards to medicine reconciliation or initiation, liaising with local pharmacies and to improve patient outcomes.

Provide oversight of the practice repeat prescription service and deal with queries from reception staff and patients. If a prescriber, then sign the majority of repeat prescriptions.

To be involved in practice administrative tasks such as completing reports.

Provide clinical medicines advice to care homes and domiciliary care teams.

Advising patients of the adverse side effect of medication and potential interaction with other medication/treatments.

Compliment and co-ordinate practice based public health campaigns with the local community pharmacy public health campaigns.

Provide medicines and long term disease advice and support to GP practice staff, practice registered patients, and the wider practice team.

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).

Advise on risk management processes relating to the prescribing and monitoring of specialist drugs e.g. controlled drugs and those subject to shared care arrangements.

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.

Provide advice and support to improve the disease registers to ensure all suitable patients are identified and offered suitable treatment and monitoring for their condition.

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.

Undertake clinical audits of prescribing in determined areas, 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

LINE MANAGEMENT

Line manage the Clinical Pharmacist(s) and Senior Pharmacy Technician, carry out regular one to ones and annual reviews.

Oversee training and development plans for team members.

Provide mentoring, coaching and professional supervision to other members of the clinical pharmacy team, including provision and evaluation of the induction and competency based training of clinical staff.

POLICIES AND PROCEDURES DEVELOPMENT

Produce best practice policies, protocols and SOPs for review by the clinical pharmacist lead GP and Foundry Management Committee.

Develop 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.

DATA ANALYSIS

Proactively collate and critically appraise relevant information to inform other staff members and Foundry policy.

Assist in analysing medicines data, including interpreting e-PACT data (web-based electronic prescribing data analysis system) to provide Foundry level reporting.

Actively identify quality improvement areas based on practice level prescribing data, propose projects and provide professional leadership and accountability to project manage those programmes of work.

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.

OTHER

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.

To undertake any other duties as allocated by line management, commensurate with grade.

Qualifications

Essential

• Vocational Masters Degree in Pharmacy, or equivalent experience.
• Completion of Pre-Registration Training
• Registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council ( GPhC)
• Evidence of commitment to Continuing Professional Development
• Authorisation for Independent Prescribing

Desirable

• Registration with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (MRPharmS)
• Post-graduate qualification in clinical pharmacy or equivalent (e.g. PgDip Clinical Pharmacy) or equivalent primary care experience
• Completion of the CPPE PCN/MOCH pharmacist pathway
• Completion or working towards completion of the RPS Consultant Pharmacist framework

Skills

Essential

• Patient physical assessment, e.g. blood pressure measurement, blood glucose testing, urine testing, pulse oximetry, temperature measurement.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills
• Persuasive negotiating and influencing abilities
• Excellent team leadership skills
• Able to instigate, lead and manage change
• Well organised and able to organise others
• Able to co-ordinate and plan activities with others
• Able to motivate others
• Able to prioritise and meet set targets
• Computer literate
• Advanced level of clinical reasoning
• Maintains high standard of practice
• Able to work under pressure
• Able to work as part of a team or as an individual
• Able to propose, lead and manage strategic network level projects
• Confidence to work strategically at a practice, population and network level across a broad spectrum of stakeholders

Experience

Essential

• NHS experience in Primary Care, Hospital or Community Pharmacy
• Delivery of Medicines Management Standards and Policies
• Extensive experience of working with primary care health teams
• Experience of working on projects where post holder uses own initiative and manages own time

Desirable

• Experience of providing advice to GPs
• Experience in analysing PACT data
• Experience in implementing, leading and managing audit projects
• Experience of multidisciplinary working

Knowledge

Essential

• Knowledge of the wider NHS
• Extensive knowledge and expertise across a number of clinical areas including common chronic disease management
• Expert knowledge gained through clinical practice/academic degree with demonstrable evidence of practice in a defined clinical area

Desirable

• Assessment, diagnosis and treatment of common minor and non-complex acute illness

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).