Pharmacy Technician

Job responsibilities

Clinical 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, supporting medication reviews, and medicines reconciliation. Where required, utilise consultation skills to work in partnership with patients to ensure they use their medicines effectively

• Provide primary support to general practice staff with regards to prescription and medication queries.

• Support with medicines reconciliation on transfer of care and systems for safer prescribing.

• Support, as determined by the PCN, medication reviews and medicines reconciliation for new care home patients and 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 liaising with specialist pharmacists for more complex patients

• Support initiatives for antimicrobial stewardship to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing

• Assist in the delivery of medicines optimisation and management incentive schemes and patient safety audits

• 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 (QOF), Investment and Impact Fund (IIF) and enhanced services.

Administrative responsibilities

• Work with the PCN multi-disciplinary team to ensure efficient medicines optimisation, including implementing efficient ordering and return processes, and reducing wastage

• 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

• 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

• Provide training and support on the legal, safe and secure handling of medicines, including the implementation of the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS)

• 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.

The post holder will:

• be responsible for the day-to-day planning of personal workloads
• follow departmental policies procedures and guidelines
• develop yourself and the role through participation in clinical supervision, training and service redesign activities
• contribute to a patient safety culture through reporting and investigation of incidents and undertaking proactive measures to improve patient safety
• actively signpost patients to the correct healthcare professional
• maintain accurate clinical records of all patient consultations and related work
• Be qualified on the CPPE Pathway or be willing to undertake this
• review the latest guidance ensuring the practice conforms to NICE, CQC etc.
• support in the delivery of enhanced services and other service requirements on behalf of the PCN
• participate in the management of patient complaints when requested to do so and participate in the identification of any necessary learning brought about through clinical incidents and near-miss events
• undertake all mandatory training and induction programmes
• contribute to and embrace the spectrum of clinical governance
• attend a formal appraisal with their 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
• contribute to public health campaigns (e.g. flu clinics) through advice or direct care
• support delivery of QOF, IIF, incentive schemes, QIPP and other quality or cost effectiveness initiatives
• perform other general tasks as assigned.

Qualifications

Essential

• General Pharmaceutical Council Registration as a Pharmacy Technician
• BTEC National Diploma in Pharmaceutical Science, NVQ Level 3 Pharmacy Services or equivalent
• Evidence of Continuous Professional Development (CPD)

Desirable

• Has completed Primary Care Pathway with the Centre of Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE)

Experience

Essential

• Previous experience working within a patient facing role

Desirable

• Recent previous experience within comparable role in General Practice

Skills and Knowledge

Essential

• Advanced theoretical and practical knowledge of evidence based medicine
• Awareness of systems to support management of patients in a primary care setting, delivering pharmaceutical input and support in the context of pathways of care and the business of the organisation(s)
• Good clinical pharmacy knowledge including terminology
• Knowledge and understanding of pharmacy law and ethics and current legislation
• Computer literate with a the ability to use Microsoft Office Programs such as Word and Excel competently with some experience of the other programs of the Microsoft Office package
• Understand the aims of current healthcare policy within the PCN
• Able to analyse and interpret prescribing data
• Has attention to detail, able to work accurately, identifying errors quickly and easily
• Able to effectively manage allocated resources
• Has a planned and organised approach with an ability to prioritise their own workload to meet strict deadlines
• Able to think analytically; anticipating obstacles and thinking ahead; using analytical techniques to draw logical solutions to problems
• Excellent communication skills, verbal and written, with the ability to adjust communication style and content to suit the audience
• Influencing and negotiating skills
• An excellent understanding of data protection and confidentiality issues

Desirable

• Be qualified on the CPPE Pathway is desirable, if not it is essential that the person would be willing to undertake this
• Evidence of knowledge of Primary Care Networks and General Practice including an understanding of the NHS Long Term Plan
• Awareness of GP budget-management and funding systems to enable GP clinical pharmacy services to assist delivery of PCN and NHS priorities and requirements for financial balance and quality
• An appreciation of the nature of primary care prescribing, concepts of rational prescribing and strategies for the improvement of prescribing
• Able to use EMIS

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).